By Sabrina Karl
We continue our look at the extensive data presented by the National Association of REALTORS in their annual profile of U.S. home purchases with a deep dive into how Americans are navigating and completing the home buying process.
What has changed greatly over the last 20 or more years is how prominently the internet has factored in Americans’ home-hunting process. In NAR’s latest snapshot of annual data, about 1 in 6 prospective homebuyers (16%) began their search by contacting a real estate agent.
Compare that to 44 percent whose first step was to look for properties online.
Interestingly, those who used the internet in their home search shopped for an average of 10 weeks and visited an average of 10 homes, while those who did not use the internet spent four weeks searching on average, and visited just four homes.
Regardless of their start and how much supplementary legwork they did via the internet, the vast majority of homebuyers (89%) did ultimately buy their home through a real estate agent or broker.
When deciding to hire an agent, the top reason was a desire for the agent to help them find the right home (cited by 52% of buyers). About 4 in 10 used an agent that was referred to them by someone they knew, while 12% returned to an agent they had previously used. Three-quarters (75%) interviewed only one agent during their search.
In the end, 87% of recent buyers reported that their agent was a very useful information source in the process, with slightly more (93%) saying the internet was very useful.
The REALTORS’ annual survey was conducted in July 2019, capturing homebuyers who purchased between July 2018 and June 2019. Responses were received from over 5,800 buyers, with results weighted to represent U.S. population demographics.