Research from realtor.com’s September 2016 Home Shopper Survey

The peak of summer home buying season has passed, and the cycle is rebooting. In September, thirty-four percent of realtor.com site visitors planning to purchase reported they just started to explore and needed more time to research their future homes. Fifty-two percent of the home shoppers set their eyes on seven or more months from now, which is next spring and summer. This presented September as the perfect time for thinking ahead about the 2017 housing market and what consumer demands will be in the upcoming buying season.

A few highlights of the survey include:

• Older Millennials (25-34) dominate current home shoppers, making up thirty-three percent of the market. First-time buyers account for fifty-two percent of the future buying potential.
• Top goals among all home shoppers are privacy, family needs, and asset accumulation.
• Most desired features in homes are good-quality construction, a larger yard and for the home to be located in a safe neighborhood.
• Primary triggers for starting the home shopping process are tiredness of current home, favorable home prices, and change of family circumstances.
• Concerns shared among home shoppers are finding a house within budget and/or fitting their needs, and a lack of funds for down payments.

Check out our infographic below highlighting more home shopper stats from the survey and read the full report on the realtor.com website.

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² NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers