“The largest U.S. age group since the baby boom will make an unmistakable mark on the housing market.” That is the opening paragraph in a must-read article entitled “Inside The Mind Of Generation Y” by Michelle Hofmann on REALTOR® Magazine Online. “Life without Google. Communication without text messaging. Real estate without virtual tours.” These are hard to imagine for those in Gen Y and is one of the reasons why we, as REALTORS®, must stay on top of the latest real estate and non-real estate related technology in order to compete for Gen Y’s business.
With Gen Y being around 75 million nationwide and comprising the bulk of the U.S population within 20 years, they are a force to be reckoned with. You must embrace Gen Y now if you are to succeed in real estate in the future, whether you’re a “veteran” or “newbie”. One way to embrace Gen Y is through technology. They are very tech savvy and use the web for many things including conducting real estate business. This includes searching for homes and potential agents to interview and eventually utilize as a Buyer’s Agent.
So will a Gen Y buyer come across you and your listings when searching for a property and an agent in your area? Let’s see:
- Does your web site or real estate blog (do you even have one?) come up at the top of the first page of results on Google, Yahoo and MSN for real estate in your farm area?
- Do you have a good virtual tour and tons of pics of your listings on the popular listing sites?
- Do you have easy or immediate access to email to be the first responsder to a Gen Y buyer or seller?
If you didn’t answer yes to all three questions, you may be losing business to your competition. The agent who does have these will be far more likely get the business (and commission from the deal). And with Gen Y mostly being first time home buyers, you’re looking at winning or losing potential repeat business and multiple referrals in the future.
With Gen Y already buying real estate and the number of agents who are embracing them and technology increasing, you should start preparing yourself today. For example, there are only 10 organic search results per page on Google regardless of the number of sites or blogs with that keyword. Since it’s much easier to stay at the top of the search results than it is to get their in the first place, you should get on that first page now before your competition does.
But what if you don’t know how to get on the first page of results or about the latest business technology in general? That’s where the VAR Convention steps in to help and where you should take advantage of the knowledge being shared. With class offerings such as “Tools Of The Trade”, “Your Web Site. What Has It Done For You Lately?” and the Social Media Labs being held daily at the Cyber Cafe, you will able to compare the way you do business to how today’s consumer conducts business and where things are heading in the near future. You can then take that knowledge and make the necessary changes or “tweak” your business to remain ahead of your competition.
Related reading/podcasts: Gen Y Insights – young adult panel hosted by Guy Kawasaki
If you want write your own real estate blog, VAR’s Convention & Expo 2007 is the place to be. Volunteers from the VAR membership who are already writing blogs will help you learn all about this remarkable communication tool that is both fun and profitable. In conjunction with the Cyber Café, VAR is hosting a Social Media Lab where you can learn about blogs and even create your own in just a few minutes.