Survey Confirms Yard Signs, Open Houses Taking a Back Seat to Mobile

The National Association of Realtors’ 2014 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers indicates that house-hunters obtain information more often from mobile apps and websites, rather than from yard signs and open houses. For the second consecutive year, the percentage of buyers finding their homes online has held steady at 43 percent. Meanwhile, a third of buyers were first timers, down 5 percentage points from 2013 to a nearly three-decade low. First-time buyers were more likely than repeat buyers to use the Internet to research mortgages, request more information about a property, and find an agent. The survey also found that a majority of buyers use websites, not agents, to search for a home; and the first thing buyers do online is search for homes (43 percent), followed by contacting a real estate agent (15 percent). Despite an increased reliance on the Internet, NAR President Steve Brown says 90 percent of buyers ultimately purchased their home through an agent. Meanwhile, only 9 percent of sellers sold their homes without the help of an agent; and only 4 percent found their Realtor via the Internet, holding steady from 2013, as most people recruited a realty practitioner based on referral. | Read More