Experts Say 2017 Will Be The Year To Market To Millennials – Do You Have a Mobile-Ready Real Estate Website

mobile-ready real estate websiteThe Fiscal Times recently issued its “Real Estate Trends to Watch in 2017” and it’s certain that a mobile-ready real estate website is one strategy to put on your to-do-list next year.

That is because 2017 will be a year to focus on the Millennial home buyer.

According to Fiscal Times, the scenario is coming to together to convince Millennials that now is the time for them to be homeowners instead of renters. Because they will be the primary driver of real estate sales.

Here’s why:

  1. Millennials are coming into money – this age group, people born in the 1980s, have now reached a point where they have advanced in their careers and are starting to earn a decent paycheck.
  2. Millennials are creating families – they are also reaching the point where they are marrying, though later than average, and are starting families.
  3. Mortgage rates are going up – Americans are used to record-low interest rates. But we all know those won’t last forever. Experts are predicting they won’t. Interest rates are already starting to rise and financial experts say they could reach 4.8% or 5% compared to the 3% range they’ve been in. Rising rates will be the catalyst that prompts many Millennials to make a move and buy a home.
  4. Mortgages are getting easier for first-time home buyers – banks and lenders are warming up to Millennials in regard to financing. It will be easier for them to acquire a home loan.
  5. Foreign buyers will be buying less – there was a nice rush of foreign investors fueling home sales for a while. But now that interest rates are rising, home prices are rising and the dollar has appreciated, you will see few homes purchases from this group. That’s even more of a reason to target the Millennial home buyer.
  6. Cash buyers will slow down.

Okay, so pundits like Fiscal Times and other experts say 2017 will be the year to focus on Millennials. Sounds easy right.

Not so fast. This is the group that was born with an iPhone in their hands.

For one, this is the mobile internet generation. Desktops – they hardly touch them. Laptops – sure, they have one but that is not their primary means of communication.

Because the device of choice for Millennials is their smartphone. And that means your website must be fully mobile ready.

Sure, you finally might have your website looking the way you won’t it to look on your desktop. But that’s not how Millennials will see your site. They will be looking at it from their phones, which as you can imagine has a whole different appearance than a large monitor.

That means images must resize and load correctly. That means text must reconfigure and be legible. That means it must be easy to determine navigation.

And all of this reformatting must happen quickly.

Every time all of these functions do not take place, you could be losing the buyer of a $500,000 townhome.

To be sure you have a website that is mobile-ready, consider the best content management platform out there – WordPress.

WordPress developers know mobile is huge. So the site is fully-coded for mobile. On Apple iPhones, Samsung smartphones , IOS and Android.

Real estate website providers such as Home Junction, can create WordPress real estate websites that are mobile-ready and full functional on a phone (or tablet).

They not only can do that, but they can also provide plug-ins that can integrate hyper-local data onto the website.

Millennials are sticklers about using their phones to gather information. They want the ability to get answers to their own questions before saying one word to a live real estate agent.

With the right data plug-ins, you can provide MLS listings, recent sales information, home values, etc. All current. All hyper-local down to the neighborhood. All integrated with MLS. And a map.

If we learned anything is 2017, it’s that things change. BIG time. If your website has not changed recently, you will be behind the times.