Connecting with Millennial Buyers

Millennials are a force to be reckoned with in today’s real estate market, making up more than a third of home buyers. Many of them are also first-time home buyers, and while they’ve gathered a mountain of information from extensive online research, they need an experienced agent they can trust to help guide them through the home-buying maze.

Building personal connections with clients is vital to your business, but this tech-savvy generation has challenged us to find more effective ways to forge those connections. If you’ve worked with millennials before, you know they rely on their smart phones for just about everything… except actually talking on their phone. This generation prefers texting and communicating on social media to phone calls and emails.

Millennials are also used to getting immediate answers, so agents need to make it a priority to respond to their questions right away, and if they can’t, then come up with clever response messages letting them know they’re important and you’ll get back to them soon. In those cases where you don’t have an answer to a question, don’t try to wing it. Instead, provide resources where they can quickly find the information they’re seeking.

If you want to connect with millennials, you must be active on social media, including Instagram, which this generation has shifted to in droves in recent years. You must also become a social media expert. If you’re not sure how to use Instagram, find someone who can show you the ropes or watch online tutorials. Posting photos of your listings isn’t enough. A well-branded and professional Instagram feed, combined with consistent stories featuring a look inside your daily life, can go a long way toward helping you connect with young buyers and earn their trust.

One thing you can do is try to find creative ways to highlight a home or neighborhood on social media. Millennials more than likely will begin their home search by finding a neighborhood they love, so you’ll need to put as much emphasis on selling the neighborhood as you do in selling the home. This generation often wants to live near their job, restaurants, stores and parks. So, if that three-bedroom home a couple is eyeing is close to a trendy coffee shop, take a selfie and post it on Facebook and Instagram.

Marketing to millennials can be challenging, but successful agents need to adjust their marketing plans to connect with this powerful group of buyers. Once you learn how to find, connect and market to millennial prospects online, you can start building long-lasting relationships that will likely lead to repeat business and new referrals down the road.