C'mon Guys--the Women are Kicking our Butts! (Unpublished)
Posted by Jay Seville on (Unpublished)Virginia Real Estate...Who is Buying and How?
Some demographics just got released recently in the VAR's (Virginia Association of Realtors) Commonwealth journal (March/April 2007) for real estate professionals. The questionnaire went out to 129,500 home buyers and its results were interesting.
ABOUT THE HOMEBUYERS:
- median age was 33
- 62% were married couples, 25% single females, 6% single males
and 7% unmarried couples
This goes along with the trend that women are procuring degrees and graduate degrees at a significantly higher rate than men. Why is this? What has happened to men? What has happened to women? I'm the first to say that women are perhaps a bit more intelligent on average than men. Yeah guys, let's just admit it okay? We'll just have to take pride in not being as emotional or complicated--but remember that's probably the result of not having as much juice up there in our noggins in the first place.
Thoughts anyone???- 54% were between 25 & 34 years old
- median income was $71,300 versus $58,300 nationally for 1st time home buyers [unfortunately the cost of living is a zillion times higher as well]
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PURCHASE PROCESS:
- 89% used a real estate professional in their search
- 61% used the internet frequently in their search
- 25% first learned about the home they purchased through the internet
- 72% of buyers rated real estate agents as a very useful information source
HOME SELLERS AND THEIR EXPERIENCE:
- typical seller owned their home for 5 years
- 90% of sellers used an agent or broker to sell their home
- 8% sold their homes without an agent compared with 12% nationally
I expected that number to be higher than the national average...not smaller. I wonder why that is? Since people are very educated here, it would seem that they would be more likely to go it alone compared with most Americans. My theory on why the rate is only 8% is that the northern virginia real estate area is populated by mega-busy type A-s who don't have time to fool with the endeavor. And usually the home gets listed anyway and it ends up being a waste of the seller's time. Perhaps the educated sellers here already are aware of that in the first place and that would explain the lower rate FSBOs locally in the Washington DC metro real estate market.
- median selling price of FSBO homes was $249,500 compared with $313,400 for agent-assisted home sales.
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Share4 Responses to "C'mon Guys--the Women are Kicking our Butts!"
I premised that on the tendency of very educated people to be much more independent and wanting to be in control of whatever they undertake compared to most people who want their hands held.
The blog post is excellent, Frank. But that's what I expect. I agree with the 23%--too hard to believe. I think some of my post got cut off. I think I originally wrote that perhaps it is lower valued homes that are more likely to go FSBO versus more expensive homes and that led to the 23% statistic they are quoting. ********So it is not necessarily accurate at all unless it was a controlled analysis at similarly valued homes.*********
The blog post is excellent, Frank. But that's what I expect. I agree with the 23%--too hard to believe. I think some of my post got cut off. I think I originally wrote that perhaps it is lower valued homes that are more likely to go FSBO versus more expensive homes and that led to the 23% statistic they are quoting. ********So it is not necessarily accurate at all unless it was a controlled analysis at similarly valued homes.*********
Posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 10:14 AM.
Chris Guest wrote:
The survey you site regarding education doesn't incorporate age. Yes, more woman are going to school but it really is many of them going to school because they previously never went to college. Women are also more likely to go back to school as vehicle to change careers. Man are lilely to stay in the same field and use thier work experience to make that change. So more woman going to school is true but the numbers are skewed.
I would imagine women buying houses because they never previously owned a house while man already owned on.
The survey you site regarding education doesn't incorporate age. Yes, more woman are going to school but it really is many of them going to school because they previously never went to college. Women are also more likely to go back to school as vehicle to change careers. Man are lilely to stay in the same field and use thier work experience to make that change. So more woman going to school is true but the numbers are skewed.
I would imagine women buying houses because they never previously owned a house while man already owned on.
Posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 9:05 AM.
InTheMarket wrote:
Hmmm... I wonder if the reason more women are buying homes in this area (Northern VA) is because there are actually more women living here than men! I have heard, and read, that there are more women living in the DC area than men, and lots of single women at that. Maybe it has less to do with education & more with the sheer number of single women living in the area, though I think it is a well documented fact that more women go to college than men (EVEN STRAIGHT OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL - so nothing to do w/ women going tback to school).
Hmmm... I wonder if the reason more women are buying homes in this area (Northern VA) is because there are actually more women living here than men! I have heard, and read, that there are more women living in the DC area than men, and lots of single women at that. Maybe it has less to do with education & more with the sheer number of single women living in the area, though I think it is a well documented fact that more women go to college than men (EVEN STRAIGHT OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL - so nothing to do w/ women going tback to school).
Posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 8:20 AM.
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You wrote: "Since people are very educated here, it would seem that they would be more likely to go it alone compared with most Americans."
Um, I disagree. Because they are smart, they go with agents. If your NET is what matters, then a good agent can NET more than a FSBO. See http://activerain.com/blogsview/79710/Go-FSBO-Save-2
Oh and that data on the Median selling price, I think that is hogwash. There is no way an agent gets a seller 23% more!
Posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 10:01 AM.