Millennials Are Buying; Are You Using Millennial-Friendly Marketing Tools?

Did you happen to see the recent Sacramento Bee article: Elk Grove millennials buck national home ownership trend in a big way?

Get Interactive and Highlight Your Millennial-Friendly Plans!

Author Thomas Oide cites marketwatch.com's studies indicating Elk Grove (a suburb south of Sacramento) is the No. 1 city in the country for homeownership for those under 35.  That's the Millennial demographic everyone is focused on! Smartasset.com found Elk Grove to be No. 2 with another Sacramento suburb, Roseville, in as No. 4!

Smartasset attributed the high rate of Millennial homeownership to the strong Sacramento job market (finally!) as well as the relative proximity to San Francisco. Note that median home value is $390,000.

Not every community has the San Francisco factor available for their marketing campaign, however. Builderonline offers suggestions for the rest of us in Redfin's Whitney Bennett's How to Make a Home More Appealing to Millennial Buyers.

We'll focus on Millennial-friendly Suggestion #1 and follow-up with others, soon: Create an Open Floor Plan.

Bennett (and NAR in 2014) says most younger buyers are interested in large, open spaces with fewer walls and partitions. Why? These buyers like entertaining in large spaces and are also interested in multi-functional rooms.

How to market that open floor plan? Let's look at a recent CPS SalesTouch installation at Cornerstone Homes' new Agave community in North County San Diego. You'll notice a great open first floor area as well as a second floor flex space -- along with the ability to interact with the floor plan and drag and drop furniture letting home shoppers dream and create their new living space!

Encourage your Millennial home shopper to design their home using interactive tools -- moving away from the standard brochure plan by mixing/matching structural choices, adding furniture, marking up the plan -- and making it their own!

New Home Marketing: Put Walkability in Your Buyer's Sights

Did you happen to see the recent Builder article, How to Make a Home More Appealing to Millennial Buyers? Redfin's Whitney Bennett suggested several ways to make a home more Millennial friendly.

SalesTouch highlights your community's walkability!

In an earlier CPS Solutions blog (you can read it here), we mentioned the author's first sales/marketing point: Create an Open Floor Plan and highlighted how CPS' interactive touchscreen system, SalesTouch, with its mix/match floor plan and drag 'n drop furniture features helps buyers imagine and design their new home consistent with their interests.

Another Bennett suggestion is to Tout Your Community's Walkability.  What's particularly noteworthy about this idea is that the Boomer demographic is also becoming interested in the livability features associated with new urbanism and considering moves away from the suburbs.

SalesTouch is particularly effective in showing buyers that your community is "close to everything" of interest: shopping, dining, recreation, transportation. Interactive touchscreen systems are particularly good at narrowcasting -- allowing home shoppers to focus on those items of particular interest.  Are you an Arts and Culture fan? Just as easy to see the museums, concert venues and studios in the neighborhood!

One extra benefit of highlighting walkability: Bennett suggests each point on your community's walkability score can can increase a home's price by an additional $3,250!

Marketing Homes to Today's Millennial Buyers

There's a recent Builderonline article called How to Make a Home More Appealing to Millennial Buyers (you can read it here). 

Redfin's Whitney Bennett points out  the Millennial demographic makes up a large portion of the home buyer market and suggests several ways to be more Millennial-friendly in your marketing.

SalesTouch: Let buyers start creating their multi-functional living space!

We'll focus on Suggestion #1 and follow-up with others, soon: Create an Open Floor Plan.

Bennett (and the National Association of Realtors in 2014) says most younger buyers are interested in large, open spaces with fewer walls and partitions. Why? These buyers like entertaining in large spaces and are also interested in multi-functional rooms.

How to market that open floor plan? Let's look at a recent CPS SalesTouch installation at Cornerstone Homes' new Agave community in North County San Diego. You'll notice a great open first floor area -- along with the ability to interact with the floor plan and drag and drop furniture letting home shoppers dream and create their new living space!

Next on the Millennial wish list: walkability -- and according to Redfin.com's recent study, each point on the walkability score can increase home prices by an average of $3,250.  More to follow!