During my two decades as a licensed real estate agent and Realtor, I’ve met and worked with a wide variety of buyers and gotten to know their varying needs and motivations. Allow me to share some of that with you. I’ve identified at least five categories of buyers.
First-time home buyers: This group has always enjoyed a wide variety of programs to meet their special needs. By the way, you are deemed a “first-time” homebuyer if you have not owned a home for at least 3 years.
The primary need for this group is obtainable financing. We can connect first-time buyers with lenders who require as little as $1,000 out-of-pocket to get into a home, and who offer classes for first-time homebuyers to help them succeed as homeowners.
The motivation to change from renter to owner is well understood. Homeownership is the number one method of wealth creation. Not only are the taxes and interest on your home tax deductible (with some limitations now), but your home may well appreciate in value as much as or more than what you pay for it each month. Then, when you sell, your capital gain on it will be mostly or entirely tax free. With such incentives, first-time home buyers are highly motivated and rewarded for buying a home.
Move-up buyers: Homeowners frequently need to buy a bigger home or simply want to buy a more luxurious one. Typically, this is when children are born or adopted, but with Covid-19 we’ve seen homeowners who need more space to work at home, not just temporarily but long-term. Employers have learned that workers can be highly productive working at home, and employees like the lack of commuting time and expense — but they need space for a home office.
Downsizing buyers: Empty nesters rattling around in 5-bedroom homes with lawns to mow and bushes to trim are wanting, if not needing, to have a simpler life in a smaller home — perhaps a “lock-and-leave” home where they can travel and not worry about their home while they’re gone. Many of these homeowners have long ago paid off their mortgages, or their mortgage is small enough that they can buy a newer, smaller home and live mortgage-free. Taking out a home equity line of credit on their paid-off home could provide the cash to buy the replacement home without a contingency on the sale of their current home, which also allows them time to transition from one home to the next. That’s just one strategy that I can share if you are in this group.
Investors: I don’t work much with investors, preferring to work with people who buy a primary residence, but I have broker associates with extensive experience serving this group of buyers. With the bidding wars going on currently, investors, especially fix-and-flippers, are having trouble buying homes with enough margin to make a profit on reselling them, but it can be done.
Relocation buyers: In this column last week I wrote about “climate refugees” relocating to Colorado from areas with high climate risks. Others move here for jobs or family. Such buyers need to find the right city, community and home to buy despite being new to Colorado. That’s where they need us the most. Yes, we can give them tours and answer their questions after carefully listening to their needs and wants. Before they even come to town, I like to send them listings and FaceTime them as I preview homes of particular interest. In just the past month I sold an Arvada listing to a couple from Minnesota and a Denver listing to a couple from Los Angeles. Both went under contract based solely on my video tours and only saw the home in person when they came for the inspection a week or so later. They could have terminated at that time, but they both loved the homes. I love my job!
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