You Don’t Like Us…You Really Don’t Like Us!

May 16th, 2007 category: Real Estate News

The following is a condensed version of results published by the National Association of Realtors:

In August, 2006, the National Association of Realtors mailed an eight page questionnaire to 129,500 consumers who bought a home between July, 2005 and June 2006. The survey yielded 7548 usable responses with a response rate, after adjusting for undeliverable addresses, of 6.3%…

This report focuses on all of Suffolk County Long Island, and we thought we’d share some interesting tidbits.

Characteristics of Home Buyers:

median age: 42. First time buyers: 39
64% of home buyers home buyers were married couples
19% of home buyers were single females
10% of home buyers were single males
6% of home buyers were unmarried couples
Characteristics of Homes Purchased:

61% of homes purchased were single family homes
Median price: $455,000.00
The typical buyer purchased a home that was 1939 square feet

The Home Search Process:

Recent home buyers searched for a home for a median of 10 weeks
Recent home buyers saw a median of 10 homes before purchasing
41% of home buyers first learned about a home they purchased via a real estate agent
12% learned of a home they purchased through the internet
60% rated the internet as very useful during their search
52% rated a real estate agent as as a very useful information source

About your experience with your real estate agent:

Buyers:
69% of home buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent.
35% of home buyers will definitely use their agent again

Sellers:
53% contacted only one agent before selecting one to assist in the sale of their home
84% of sellers used an agent or broker to sell their home
60% of all sellers were very satisfied with the selling process
53% of sellers reported they would definitely use the same agent again

For Sale By Owner (FSBO)

14% of sellers sold their home without the assistance of an agent
80% of sellers sold a detached, single family home
The median selling price of FSBO homes was $462,500. compared with
$447,500. for agent assisted home sales.

We’ve included only partial details, but have tried to include, and understand, the data provided. Clearly, the Long Island real estate community has some serious work to tackle. 91% of you ranked honesty and integrity as “very important”, yet only 56% reported that they were “very satisfied” with the honesty and integrity of their agent. Additionally, there’s the issue of the price discrepancy between what a FSBO sold their home for, as compared to the median sold price of agent assisted sales. Keep in mind that with fewer successful FSBO transactions the numbers are somewhat deceiving- had an equal number gone the FSBO route, perhaps that number would differ.

As a company that can plead the 5th to the above time frame referenced due to having opened in 2007, we are looking only to create our OWN numbers that reflect 100% satisfaction. As a home buyer or home seller in the North Fork of Long Island, we’d love to get your “take” on the numbers, and perhaps assist with the improvement of a clearly lacking industry. If you’ve bought or sold a home in Riverhead, Aquebogue, Baiting Hollow, Jamesport, Mattituck, Laurel, Cutchogue, Peconic, Southold, Greenport , East Marion, or Orient, New York, we’d be very grateful for your ideas on how Options Realty can service you in a way that will create full customer satisfaction. Go ahead- tell us your horror stories- but we’d also enjoy the positive tales, as well!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Real Estate News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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