More on Gen X & Y and the real estate market

This story clearly defines (archived: 2006) the some of the differences facing some real estate professionals regarding the emergence of the  Gen X & Y real estate market. I noted this a few days ago, but found this quite illuminating. Two of my favorite descriptives are:

Blunt – Another of Gen X’s traits is that they are characteristically straightforward and have little patience for deception and doubletalk. They aren’t shy about sharing their opinions of you, your company or your brand in a variety of forums either.

Skeptical – In addition to a quickly evolving technology landscape, Gen X bore witness to an equally rapid change in the media landscape. They’ve been bombarded with marketing messages since they were young and have evolved sophisticated BS radars in response.

Good.

One aspect of the post with which I disagree is this –

Today, they’re first-time (even second-time) home buyers, they’re new parents, they’re confident consumers and they’re an extremely hard market to talk to.

They’re not hard to talk to – they don’t like BS, they are educated, they are opinionated and think that they know what they are looking for.

For example – I received a call (internet lead) from a potential client yesterday who started the conversation with, “We’ve been looking on the internet and feel that we have a pretty good idea about what we want.” Awesome; they are ahead of the curve. That makes my job more efficient and our time together better spent.

They are on a very short timeline to interview several Realtors, learn the market and purchase. One of the recurring themes of our 15 minute conversation was that they want to be prepared when they arrive next week so that whomever they choose for representation will not waste their time. Love it. Importantly, they are looking for professional guidance and representation. They are probably perfectly capable of doing this on their own but for one simple fact – they seem to have neither the time nor the inclination to do so.

Gen X and Y are a segment of the market that is refreshing to work with – candid, decisive, (usually) financially sound, and tech-savvy. I just hope I can earn their business.