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!