When is the right time to specialize in the senior niche?
In real estate, we’re always looking for the best opportunity. We ask ourselves, “Where can we do the most good for the most amount of profit?” In other words, we want to find the market of the moment. Today we want to share the next market of the moment with you because it’s already here—senior adult homeowners.
This is one of those topics we could spend an hour giving you countless statistics to support our claim, but for brevity’s sake, we’ll keep it to the three best reasons why the senior market is the place to be:
1. Senior homeowners are expected to move out of 15 million units this decade. This is even more than the 11.3 million senior homeowners who moved in the last decade.
2. Over 50% of all home sellers across the United States are seniors. This comes from the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), and it really puts things in perspective. By the way, in some cities and regions of the United States, this percentage is much higher.
3. About 50% of people 65 years or older have lived in the same house for over 20 years. This is a long amount of time, but the reality is that many have actually lived in the same home for 40 years or longer!
These are important stats, but let me give you one more as a bonus: Approximately 92,000 people in the United States are 100 years or older. This one is key because it tells us some important information. People are living healthier, longer lives, which means they are staying in their homes longer.
The bottom line is that specialists get paid more, and working with seniors is a specialized field.
As people live in their homes longer and begin to experience the challenges of aging, selling a home becomes more complex. With this in mind, you can be sure that mature homeowners require an agent who is both caring and competent. Seniors need you; families need you; and the real estate industry needs you. They need you to be at your best!
Working with seniors requires expertise that takes a bit of time and training to fully develop. For those at the beginning or prime of their careers, this is a fantastic opportunity.
Many people falsely assume they should wait to transition to working with mature clients as they get older themselves, but why would you wait? It isn’t that you can’t work with seniors as a seasoned agent, but by starting earlier you have the ability to establish yourself in the field and reap the rewards for decades to come. (We were in our 20’s when we first adopted this specialty!).
If you are interested in the senior real estate niche or have questions about whether it’s right for you, give us a call at 512-842-6011 or shoot us an email. We’d love to hear from you.
Looking for advanced training in working with the mature market? Learn more or get enrolled in an upcoming course in Success in Seniors Real Estate today.