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In Minnesota, How do Buyer's Find the Home they Purchase?

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Kirby Fine Homes

 Where Do Minnesota Buyers Find Their Homes?

Whenever I speak to a Minnesota home owner who is thinking about selling their home, I discuss the technology I use to help market the home, and how implementing the power of the Internet is a big factor in my real estate success.

Statistics are extremely important when selling a home, so some data that I go over with a seller includes the infamous "Where do Buyers Come From?". Below is current information for the 2008 real estate market in Minnesota. As you can see, 33% of home buyers found the home they bought through a real estate agent. (Please note, this means the agent showed them homes and one of those homes was bought by the buyer. It does not mean that only 33% of buyers used a real estate agent to purchase a home.)

The next piece of data which is so important is that 45% of Minnesota home buyers found the home they bought via the Internet. Wow! That is huge, and shows right away how important it is to market a home for sale on-line in our state.




Please also note, for those of you who still believe in print advertising, that in Minnesota, only 2% of buyers found their home from the newspaper, and only 1% found their home from a home book or magazine. Print advertising is dead and just doesn't bring in the buyers.

Now looking further into the national statistics for "How do Buyer's Find Homes?", the National Association of Realtors has compiled data since 2001 of real estate trends concerning this issue. As you can see in the below table, over the last eight years, buyers finding their home, from the research of a real estate agent, has decreased 14%. At the same time, and probably the most dramatic change, is that buyers have increasingly found their homes via the Internet, up from 8% in 2001 to 32% in 2008. Wow!


When you look at Minnesota versus National, you can easily see that the Internet is more readily used in a buyer's home search, 45% to 32%. So for home sellers, if you don't hire an agent that is Internet savvy, you could be losing market time and money in selling your home.

For the small minority of people out there who feel the Internet is making the real estate agent obsolete, please know that even with all these buyers using the Internet to search for homes, 86% of these buyers are still utilizing a real estate agent to help with the home search and purchase. The good agents are using the power of the Internet for success, integrating it into their marketing plan to help facilitate the sale of their client's home.

Comments (16)

Li Read
Sea to Sky Premier Properties (Salt Spring) - Salt Spring Island, BC
Caring expertise...knowledge for you!

Hope everyone reads your post...very informative.   

Dec 14, 2009 04:09 AM
Lenn Harley
Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, MD & VA Homes and Real Estate - Leesburg, VA
Real Estate Broker - Virginia & Maryland

This is a good example for home buyers. 

Agents can ignore the Internet to their detriment.

Dec 14, 2009 04:22 AM
Bill Blair
Coldwell Banker Realty - Covington, GA
Covington Georgia Realtor Covington Living Homes

Great information, Jennifer.  I'm going to head over to Realtor.com to see if I can find the info for my state.  Internet is all I use now to advertise, and those stats would be great to have and use.

Dec 14, 2009 04:30 AM
Carla Muss-Jacobs, RETIRED
RETIRED / State License is Inactive - Portland, OR

Is the Internet used by buyers . . . over a real estate agent??  I wonder how the information is gathered, and what questions were asked.  I send my clients properties via Internet all the time. 

Dec 14, 2009 05:28 AM
Team Honeycutt
Allen Tate - Concord, NC

Very informative. It's fun to see the stats from other parts of the US.  I think in NC our numbers are even higher for the internet.  A huge part of our marketing is internet driven.

Dec 14, 2009 06:23 AM
Anna "Banana" Kruchten
HomeSmart Real Estate - Phoenix, AZ
602-380-4886

Jennifer I've heard that as much as 85% of all buyers begin their search online for a home and many look for months before they contact their agent.  This is an excellent post with information all agents should pay attenition to.  The net is here to stay and it will only play a bigger part as time goes on - print is dead.

Dec 14, 2009 07:02 AM
An Marshall
Berkshire Hathaway - St. Augustine - Saint Augustine, FL
Your St Augustine Real Estate Consultant

Great, nice to see figures actually substantiating what I have been believing.  I'll have to see if I can access the stats for my state, Florida.

Dec 14, 2009 07:06 AM
Shana Haugen
Century 21 - Gold Key - Fargo, ND

These are great!  As an agent in Moorhead, it is very helpful to see what's really happening.

Dec 14, 2009 07:49 AM
Kris Wales
Keller Williams Realty - Lakeside Market Center - Macomb, MI
Real Estate Blog & Homes for Sale search site, Macomb County MI

It was interesting to see the stats from 2001.   In 1997 (when I first got my license) I started up my website.  My first broker almost had a heart attack "What are you doing???"   No one in the office even had email :-)

I still smile when I realize that I (and many many others) were not wrong in our way of thinking.

Dec 14, 2009 08:50 AM
Russ Ravary ~ Metro Detroit Realtor call (248) 310-6239
Real Estate One - Commerce, MI
Michigan homes for sale ~ yesmyrealtor@gmail.com

Print advertising is so dead.    I think eventually the internet will reach 50% of the market

Dec 14, 2009 11:14 AM
Reuben Saltzman
Structure Tech Home Inspections - Minneapolis, MN
Delivering the Unbiased Truth.

Jennifer - you're right on.  I'm not even looking for a house at the moment, yet my wife browses houses online every day, window shopping.  We wanted to take a look at one recently, so we just contacted the listing agent directly.

I think a lot of people are starting to do that - I've been doing a ton of buyers inspections for clients that have the agent representing them AND the sellers.  These lucky agents all have the internet to thank for that.

Dec 14, 2009 12:54 PM
Mike Russell
Mike Russell Real Estate Group - Overland Park, KS
Overland Park Kansas Real Estate

by reading your headline, I thought the answer was going to be by snowmobile or bobsled. Boy was I wrong

Dec 14, 2009 01:09 PM
Neil Venketramen
Chicago, IL

Good discussion

 

It is good to see that although buyers search the internet they still use an agent to buy their home.

 

So i guess the take away from this is to be good at both, being and excellent realtor as well as marketing and building realtionships with new clients at the time of searching online

 

Thanks for the stats. This is very informative

Dec 14, 2009 01:14 PM
Robin Dampier REALTOR®
Coldwell Banker King - Hendersonville, NC
Hendersonville & Western NC Real Estate Source

Good info and it's so hard to believe that anyone in the business, or most any business for that matter, could think that internet marketing wasn't one of the most important aspects of their business to pay attention to.

We find that even folks who can't figure out the internet and don't have or want a "puter" turn to family and friends when starting to look for a home.  There's just so much more exposure and information provided online than could be put a very expensive print ad.  The print business is surely taking a huge hit and many jobs have been lost along those lines - a sign of major changing times.

Sue of Robin and Sue

Dec 14, 2009 02:32 PM
Chris Olsen
Olsen Ziegler Realty - Cleveland, OH
Broker Owner Cleveland Ohio Real Estate

Hi Jennifer -- We understand this intuitively, but many sellers and large companies still rely on outdated models that may be good for branding, but doesn't benefit the consumer as much.

Dec 14, 2009 03:19 PM
Michelle Francis
Tim Francis Realty LLC - Atlanta, GA
Realtor, Buckhead Atlanta Homes for Sale & Lease

Jennifer,  Great stats and re-affirms why I am working in this media!  It's exciting and ever changing, but real estate agents will be part of real estate for a long time. That role is changing to be sure, but will continue to evolve.  All the best, Michelle

Dec 14, 2009 11:46 PM