Key Stats On 2011 Home Buyers & Sellers (part 3)
In the past couple weeks, I’ve posted stats from the NAR’s annual profile of home buyers and sellers. Part 1 was on who they are and what they bought, part 2 was some charts on how buyers find homes, and the stats below are mostly about shopping habits of homebuyers.
-Buyers usually spent 2-3 weeks searching before contacting an agent; for 35% of buyers, the very first step was looking at properties
-The typical home search took 12 weeks
-40% of buyers found the home they purchased online; as a result of online searching, 75% of buyers drove by and 63% of buyers walked through a home they had viewed on the Internet
-About half of buyers found their agent by referral from a someone they knew (or had worked with the agent before); 15% used an agent who was a friend or family member
-10% of buyers found their agent through a website; 7% at an open house
-42% of buyer had an oral buyer representation agreement with their agent; 18% had a written agreement
-65% of buyers interviewed only one real estate agent
-Single females make up about 20% of home-buyers, twice the percentage of single males
-Over 40% of buyers were first-time home-buyers
-46% of buyers expected to stay in their new home 8 or more years; 27% expected 16 or more years. (41% replied “don’t know”)
-45% of buyers thought buying a home was a better investment than buying stocks (9% thought not as good as stocks)
-52% of sellers used a different agent than the one who represented them on the buy side
-16% of sellers interviewed 2 agents; 18% interviewed 3 or more agents
Thanks again to Patrick Carlisle of Paragon Real Estate group for extracting these.
___
Reference:
–2011 Home Buyer & Seller Stats (Part 1, Part 2)
–Paragon Real Estate Group: Market Dynamics