The Realtor - Buyer Age Gap

Yesterday I was reading an article in one of the Realtor mags (yes, on paper ... I know, sooooo 20th century.) The article was talking about social networking, and the age gap between Realtors and buyers. The median age of Realtors turns out to be about 52, while the median age of buyers is about 39, and even younger — 33 — for first time home buyers. On a related note, one of our clients last week was chiding us for not being able to do property searches easily on their iPhone. They commented that "Nobody uses a computer anymore." Now, the MLS Search on my website (http://www.catskill4sale.com/listings_idx.asp ) does work in the Safari browser on an iPhone, but isn't optimized for mobile, so there's a lot of side to side and up and down scrolling, and there isn't an iPhone app for this particular search application.

My initial response was "hrrrmmmmphhhh, use a computer!" If you're around iPhone users much (and in this day and age, who isn't), their Apple-centric xenophobia can get tiresome. If you gave me the choice of being locked in a room with an iPhone proselytizer or a born again Christian intent on conversion, it would be a tough call.

Putting aside my thoughts about iPhone users, and their irritating habit of pulling out their devices in the middle of dinner to find out who starred in a particular movie, there is an important lesson here. I'm not in the same technological generation, with the same expectations for immediacy, as most of my clients. While I would venture that I'm better than most of my generation at adopting technology, I'm a generation behind those finger flying texters. I still don't understand, for example, the role of Twitter in business, and my Facebook page is a seldom updated footnote in my online presence.

It's this age gap between brokers and buyers that is at the crux of the slow and creaking adaptation of real estate brokerage to the 21st century that I wrote about below, and that generated such a passionate response. The shape of real estate brokerage may not change until the torch passes to the next generation. The generational gap is often apparent in meetings of Realtors. The old guard, who largely hold the reigns of power, tend to be more traditional and conservative. But there's a younger vanguard moving up that are more open and progressive. It may take some time, but the balance of power will shift.

As an aside, over the past few days I've been downloading and trying out iPhone real estate search apps. (No, I don't have an iPhone, but I do have an iPod Touch.) Most of them are pretty lousy. "Rudimentary" might be a more charitable term. Their capabilities to search and save are very truncated compared to their web-based equivalents. The novelty of it is certainly enticing, and they can come in handy when you're on the road and want to look up a property. But for the heavy lifting of property searching, I think that buyers will find that bigger is better.

Comments

[Dina]

Dave, I think the key word here is 'immediacy' or 'immediate' or 'instant gratification'. I'm 62 and a geeky programmer so I understand the tech world as good or better than most, but sadly, one of the bad side-effects of the techno world, is that it has engendered the whole idea of 'NOW'. As a 'be here now' person from the 60s, I do understand the word 'now' but back then, it meant, savor the moment fully...not rush to the next one.

I don't think people under 50 get this. Sad.

Dina

[Reg]

Ignore them: Everyone uses computers, from my 7 year-old niece to my 93 year-old grandmother, and everyone in between. Anyone griping about how 'nobody uses computers' is quite simply an idiot.