Recently during a lovely dinner with colleagues, the conversation turned to a common one for any industry: Generations X and Y.

Even the names allotted to these generations give them an air of mystery, and there are many seminars, studies and conference sessions that try to examine how to attract, communicate with and serve these groups both as consumers and real estate agents.

Common solutions often discussed include recruiting new real estate agents from these generations. According to NAR statistics, 70% of Realtors come to the industry from non-related fields, the inference is that most real estate professionals do not enter the real estate industry right out of college. Although there are many solid reasons why real estate is a good career, one can hardly fault anyone facing substantial student loan debt from not starting their career in a commission-only position. Most of us in the real estate industry recognize that real estate is often a second, third or fourth career. The average age of the “older” GenX crowd is in the early 40s and GenY is just entering their 30s. If the studies showing the average time GenX spends in a job is 3.5 to 4 years are correct, and the assumption is made that not every job change equals a corresponding career change, then as a workforce, GenX is just now entering a potential second career phase, and GenY has a long way to go.

Another greatly investigated and discussed solution regarding the need to communicate better on “their terms” is Social Networking and Social Media. I performed random and less than scientific but readily available research on LinkedIn. The average median age for the six companies across the U.S. I examined was 44 years. These companies had anywhere from a 34% - 51% LinkedIn participation rate with an average of 44% participation. The average age of LinkedIn compared to other social networking sites tends to rank higher across the board, and these statistics would indicate that a large percentage of current real estate professionals is at least experimenting and making an effort to incorporate social media in their business. As a benchmark, NAR reports that the median age of a Realtor is 52 years.

The importance of these two generations should not be undervalued. For the same six companies researched on LinkedIn, research was also performed on quantcast.com. Information for all six according to the site was estimated and not quantified, but the estimates showcased interesting results that definitely require additional research. These sites had an average of 66% of users under the age of 49 with an average 25% of users being between 18 to 34 years of age.

So what is the solution to attracting and serving these two groups? Recruiting younger sales associates who “talk the talk” should be a focus, but unless we can dramatically change the profile of a real estate agent, it is a long-term goal. We can train agents on social media and get them to set up social networking profiles, but even then the median age drops only slightly, and just being there is very different from communicating effectively through the medium.

With published statistics stating that consumers start their search for homes online anywhere from 84 - 96% of the time and an industry average inquiry response rate of about 50%, there is an enormous disparity between service expectation and delivery.

We need to build a bridge between now and the point in time when either GenX & GenY enter the real estate industry or a larger percentage of real estate professionals effectively learn to communicate and service them. That bridge may be the same solution discussed to solve other industry issues such as market segmentation and shrinking broker profit margins.

More and more often, real estate companies are assuming responsibility for generating and developing relationships with customers, allowing real estate agents to focus on their areas of strength. Oftentimes these companies are adapting their former Relocation Divisions into Corporate Services Divisions whose customer service skills can easily translate to other market segments. The employee status of these divisions’ personnel can also be more attractive to debt-laden graduates whose insight into their peers can further strengthen a company’s position with the X &Y generations.


Posted by: Sharon E. Michnay, CRP, GMS, WRS, Director, Corporate Business Development, Halstead Property. Sharon is chairperson of the LeadingRE Advisory Council.