What do we really know about buyers and sellers of today’s housing cialis sale market? Given the current climate of gloom-and-doom from the media, it’s not surprising that most people believe that there are fewer buyers and more desperate sellers out there. Are the players in this game really anything like the media’s portrayal of them?

Well, the big wig National Association of Realtors recently released their profile of home buyers and sellers for 2009, and the results are extremely interesting. You can check out the full report at the National Association of Realtors website, but we’ve decoded the 116 pages of information into some of the key points below.

The biggest surprise in 2009 was that 47% of home buyers were first-time home buyers. This is a HUGE figure and is the highest by a sizable margin since 2001, but must be viewed in the context of the huge home buyers tax incentives (the famous $8K credit) that were available in 2009. The typical first time home buyer was 30 years old, as opposed to an average age of 48 for repeat buyers. The 2008 median household income for buyers was $61,000 among first-time buyers and $88,100 among repeat buyers for an average of about $73K. 21% of recent home buyers were single females as opposed to just 10 percent single males. New home purchases, normally a sizable percentage of the market particularly among first time home buyers, were down to their lowest level in 18 years at only 18 percent of all recent home purchases! The typical home last year was 1,800 square feet in size, built in around 1991, and had a median price of $175,000 in the south (as opposed to about $240,000 in the West and $158,000 in the midwest). 78% Viagra Jelly of these purchases were detached single-family homes, and in terms of factors important to the buyers more than 75% of buyers said that commuting costs were either somewhat or very important in determining where they choose to buy.

For more than a third of home buyers in 2009 the first step in their search was to look for properties online . Even more convincingly, more than nine out of ten home buyers (about 94%) used the internet to search for homes – now you now why Red Home Realty is so big on our free Austin Home Search, which has an awesome interactive map search for Austin home buyers!

But interestingly enough, despite the number of buyers using the internet to search for homes, more than 80% still said that REALTORS were a “very useful source of information” who used them in searching for their home. 77% of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker.
44% of those buyers found their agent through a referral from a friend or family member.
The typical buyer searched for about 12 weeks and viewed an average of 12 homes before deciding on the perfect property.

When it came time to actually purchase the home, 92% of home buyers financed their purchase (as opposed to cash purchase). The percentage of buyers who financed 100% of their purchase price dropped from 23% to about 15% in 2009. About half of the 2009 buyers reported that they made sacrifices to purchase their home, including reducing spending on luxury items or entertainment, and about 20% of these buyers said that their mortgage application and approval process was more difficult than expected.

2009 was an interesting year for sellers (as evidenced by our recent post reviewing the sales statistics for Austin last year) throughout the country. 40% of sellers found their real estate agent through a referral by friends or family. 26% of sellers used the agent who they worked with in the past to buy or sell a home. 90% of sellers reported that their home was listed or advertised online – a solid indicator of the importance of hiring a Realtor that’s comfortable employing technology to connect with potential buyers! Of the recent sellers, 81 percent reported that they would use their real estate agent again and recommend them to others for their real estate needs. A type of seller that’s not often talked about by real estate agents is for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) sellers. Of the sellers who sold their home without the assistance of an agent (only cialis price 11% of all sellers), about 50% of them know their buyer prior to the sale, and nearly 1/3 of these FSBO sellers took no actions whatsoever to market their home. 50% didn’t offer any incentives to attract potential buyers.

Author Bio: Red Home Realty is a forward-thinking group of real estate professionals that look at real estate differently because the old way is broken. We’re tech nerds (offering powerful Austin Home Search tool for buyers and online and social media marketing for sellers) and we offer 20% cash back commission rebates to eligible buyers. Connect with us at http://www.redhomerealty.com or learn about the Austin market on our company blog at http://www.redhomerealty.com/category/blog

Category: Finance/Real Estate/Buying
Keywords: First Time Homebuyers, Buyer Statistics, 2009 Market Statistics, Austin Real Estate