Real Estate has always been the ultimate in a local business, but those boundaries are ever expanding. The International Division of the National Association of Realtors gave us these statistics to alert us to an emerging market. Between April 2010 and March 2011, there were 82 billion of residential international sales amounting to 7% of the total U.S. residential market. This is an increase of 16 billion from the previous year's volume of 66 billion.
"Increasingly, more and more Realtors are working with international clients who want to buy property in the U.S." Ron Phipps NAR President 2011.
International sales were split evenly between non-resident foreigners and recent immigrants, with immigrant buyers who have been in the U.S. less than two years, accounting for half of the U.S. foreign buyers with 41 billion. International buyers of U.S. residential real estate came from 70 countries. The top five, Canada, China, Mexico, U.K., and India accounted for 53% of all transactions from March 2010 to March 2011. Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas accounted for 58% of all transactions with international buyers. Proximity to the home country, convenience of air transportation, climate, and location were the most important considerations to international buyers.
When we look outward we learn that China is poised to possibly become the world's largest economy this decade and India's middle class is already larger than the entire U.S. population. The important conversation today is how to unlock the growing global middle class around the world, and what it means to us. Many are predicting that within 10 years more people in the world will be middle class than poor for the first time. This increase is associated with a significant geographical shift of wealth from developed to emerging nations and economic activity that will rearrange many key future decisions.
This growing middle class in these emerging nations will buy more, want more, travel more, and create a new layer of homeowners. Working in this arena will require a different skill set and knowledge. In Real Estate it is becoming even more tricky to navigate through the huge layers of complexity in language, culture, local lifestyle, currency, measuring scales, financial and mortgage criteria, tax regulations and more.
How is the Real Estate community reaching out to all of these incoming buyers?
Realtor.com, the largest online destination for the U.S. real estate listings, expanded its worldwide reach with the launch of their international website Realtor.com/international featuring listings from Brazil, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Croatia, and Spain. It is well positioned to become the dominate choice for buyers in many countries around the globe. By the end of 2011 the site already featured over 700,000 international listings from 11 countries. Add this to the 3.7 million listings in the U.S. and it is clear that Realtor.com is going to be huge website.
Realtor.com is capable of allowing anyone to shop online globally. You don't need to understand the global market or even the language of any given country. Listings not only have the local price you can convert to one of 20 currencies and review in one of 11 languages. By August 2011 Realtor.com/international was already tracking over 800,000 visitors outside the U.S. from a total of 10 -13 million unique monthly visitors.
The largest brokerage portal was launched in late 2011 www.Global.remax.com by RE/MAX LLC. This is considered to be the very first integrated global website by a residential real estate company. As most countries do not have MLS operations, and brokerage companies do not have partnership agreements with data providers worldwide, the launch of RE/MAX's international site www.global.remax.com is quite a substantial achievement.
At the time of the www.global.remax.com launch the site contained 300,000 listings from Brazil, France, Italy, India, Portugal, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. with more than 70 countries and territories around the world. The site allows buyers to search for properties in 30 languages, translate currencies and find the latest international real estate news. Every RE/MAX listing will be available to anyone in those more than 70 countries to search in their own languages and currencies.
If you are planning to stay in the Real Estate business you should diligently prepare now to begin serving a multicultural base of clients, no matter where you live in the U.S.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
New Indiana Real Estate License Law
Indiana Real Estate licensing will change to a singular license state July 2014. After passing the Indiana Senate 48-2 on January 31st, Senate Bill 275 went to the Indiana House where it passed 94-0 on February 21st and was signed into law by Governor Daniels on March 19th.
I was able to interview Kathy Harbaugh, VP of Professional Development for Indiana Association of Realtors. She has been very helpful trying to unwind the details of this change.
There will no longer be Sales Person licenses in Indiana after July 2014, all active agents will be Brokers. The idea is that the consumer doesn't distinguish the difference between a Sales Person and a Broker. The other goal was to enhance the education requirements for licensing and for Continued Education to improve the level of expertise and professionalism in our industry.
How will affect you? If you are a Sales Person you will have from June 2012 to July 2014 to take a Broker's Transition course and pass the test to become a Broker. This course is currently not available, however, the Commission is not looking to make it so difficult that a Sales Person wouldn't pass it. The test will be given in a class when completed by the schools. It is a 24 hour course and will count toward your CE from 7/1/12 to 6/30/14. Kathy told me that there are plans to have these available online, on demand as well. You will be getting your Broker's license with this, so it will still need to process of applying for a Broker's license and paying the 64.25 fee. If you do not complete the transition course and test your license will be considered expired.
Until July of 2014 you will still have the normal 16 hours of Continuing Education requirements you are accustomed to. Those with Sales Person licenses must complete them by June 30th, 2012, current Brokers will need to complete them by June 30th, 2013. However, current Brokers will have to add 8 more hours of CE between July 2013 and July of 2014. All licenses change from the current two year licensing cycle to a three year cycle starting July 2014 with 12 hours of Continued Education per year.
There will only be two different designations of licenses, Brokers and Managing Brokers who will have to complete 4 of their 12 hours of their Continued Education in a Managing Broker course. All Principal Brokers will automatically become Managing Brokers July 2014. There seems to still be some questions in the interpretation of the law on current Broker Managers if they automatically grandfather or not. Kathy Harbaugh believes that they will be required to take the Managing Broker class.
Until July of 2014 all the rules stay the same. Sales Person classes will continue with the standard 54 hour course and the IAR will offer a bundle with the 24 hour transition courses to get the new agent up to the 2014 requirements. After July of 2014 to earn a license there will be a 90 hour pre-licensing class and then after licensed they will be required to take 30 hours of post licensing education during the first two years.
For those whose license is in referral, they will stay in referral and will automatically become brokers. However, they will not be allowed to become active until they have completed the 24 hour transition course.
For your information, there are currently around 9,800 active salesperson licensee's today in Indiana, with another 8,500 in referral.
I was able to interview Kathy Harbaugh, VP of Professional Development for Indiana Association of Realtors. She has been very helpful trying to unwind the details of this change.
There will no longer be Sales Person licenses in Indiana after July 2014, all active agents will be Brokers. The idea is that the consumer doesn't distinguish the difference between a Sales Person and a Broker. The other goal was to enhance the education requirements for licensing and for Continued Education to improve the level of expertise and professionalism in our industry.
How will affect you? If you are a Sales Person you will have from June 2012 to July 2014 to take a Broker's Transition course and pass the test to become a Broker. This course is currently not available, however, the Commission is not looking to make it so difficult that a Sales Person wouldn't pass it. The test will be given in a class when completed by the schools. It is a 24 hour course and will count toward your CE from 7/1/12 to 6/30/14. Kathy told me that there are plans to have these available online, on demand as well. You will be getting your Broker's license with this, so it will still need to process of applying for a Broker's license and paying the 64.25 fee. If you do not complete the transition course and test your license will be considered expired.
Until July of 2014 you will still have the normal 16 hours of Continuing Education requirements you are accustomed to. Those with Sales Person licenses must complete them by June 30th, 2012, current Brokers will need to complete them by June 30th, 2013. However, current Brokers will have to add 8 more hours of CE between July 2013 and July of 2014. All licenses change from the current two year licensing cycle to a three year cycle starting July 2014 with 12 hours of Continued Education per year.
There will only be two different designations of licenses, Brokers and Managing Brokers who will have to complete 4 of their 12 hours of their Continued Education in a Managing Broker course. All Principal Brokers will automatically become Managing Brokers July 2014. There seems to still be some questions in the interpretation of the law on current Broker Managers if they automatically grandfather or not. Kathy Harbaugh believes that they will be required to take the Managing Broker class.
Until July of 2014 all the rules stay the same. Sales Person classes will continue with the standard 54 hour course and the IAR will offer a bundle with the 24 hour transition courses to get the new agent up to the 2014 requirements. After July of 2014 to earn a license there will be a 90 hour pre-licensing class and then after licensed they will be required to take 30 hours of post licensing education during the first two years.
For those whose license is in referral, they will stay in referral and will automatically become brokers. However, they will not be allowed to become active until they have completed the 24 hour transition course.
For your information, there are currently around 9,800 active salesperson licensee's today in Indiana, with another 8,500 in referral.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Catch The Wave Of Home Buyers!
When you are learning to surf one of the first things you will be taught is that you have to start paddling as fast as you can before you see or feel the wave. This doesn't make sense to us naturally, but the wave is building down deep and if you wait to see it or feel it to start paddling it will roll right underneath you and leave you stranded hoping to catch the next one.
Let me tell you, the wave is coming, can you feel it yet? What wave am I talking about? The wave the next Real Estate explosion, are your ready to catch it? What is it? Where will it come from?
It is called the Millennials, Gen Y, or the Echoboomers, they are the driving force of the new excitement we are all feeling in the Real Estate market. Who are they? How do we communicate with them?
First of all let's look at the good news there are eighty-four million of them, even more than the seventy-eight million Baby Boomers who have driven our economy for decades. Now even better news, traditionally there are five million young adults age 18-33 living at home with their parents, however this recent economy has forced twenty-nine million to stay or move back home. Just a clue, the kids aren't happy about it, and neither are the parents. A key figure in economics is the number of household formations are created per year. From 2002 to 2007 there were an average of 1.3 million households formed per year, starting in 09 we have dropped to around 350,000 households formed per year.
Think of it this way, there is a massive cork in the top of the bottle and it is about to blow. Just to satisfy the housing needs of this juggernaut of new buyers coming to the market will require 40 million more homes than we currently have available.
Let's take a look at who they are, and what makes them tick. They were born somewhere between 1977 and 1933. They are now between 19 and 35 years old. The average first time home buyer today is 31. In 2011 of all FHA loans 77% were first time buyers!
The Millennials are the first "Glocal" generation, they think globally and locally. They were raised in dual income homes, were children of divorces and day cares. They are the first generation that "everyone got a trophy." They are connected, protected, and well-educated. Multi-tasking was their survival mechanism, they have been over-scheduled from a young age.
They have always had voice mail, but hate to use it. Good luck getting them to listen to your message. They do not leave messages for each other, they look at the number of the missed call, if they know it to be a friend they call back, or simply text. They sleep with their cell phone, it is their extension of being. They are the Facebook generation, if you want to communicate with them, you will do so with texting or IM on Facebook. They also do not read emails, too slow for them. This is the most tech savvy generation in history, consider this, they will spend more than 1/3 of their lives (23 years) on the Internet.
This is one of the most diverse of all American generations, 37% are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. They are the largest 2nd generation immigration group in history, one in five has at least one immigrant parent.
In the next five years, as they start to move into management positions, salary and consumer confidence increases, there will be literally TRILLIONS more dollars spent every year in the U.S. alone.
When you want to communicate with them it won't be emails and it won't be by calling them on the phone, it will be texting and IM on Facebook. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but at least ask how they prefer to communicate and then honor it.
They will want to purchase starter property, they like the idea of being closer to town, they like to be able to walk to activities, think college campus when you are scouting properties. Their parents have been very involved in all of their activities and will be very involved in their home purchase as well. Maybe contributing toward the down payment as well. Be prepared to work with multiple generations throughout the process.
Who do they get their information? They are going to Google you, your company, and what you tell them. They will ask their Social media connections to give their opinions as well. The Millennials have grown up Googleling every homework assignment, they text classmates to find out what they found, doing so is part of the DNA. So don't be offended if they don't take you at face value but research what you tell them. It might be a great idea to have a Google Alert programmed for your name and your company to know what they might find. Don't be surprised if they Tweet or Facebook about the home, or even you while you are meeting. This can be great if they like and endorse you.
So here they come, the Millennials are coming of age and want a home of their own. Interest rates are at historic lows, homes prices are On Sale, here comes that wave. Are you ready? Paddle Now!!!
Let me tell you, the wave is coming, can you feel it yet? What wave am I talking about? The wave the next Real Estate explosion, are your ready to catch it? What is it? Where will it come from?
It is called the Millennials, Gen Y, or the Echoboomers, they are the driving force of the new excitement we are all feeling in the Real Estate market. Who are they? How do we communicate with them?
First of all let's look at the good news there are eighty-four million of them, even more than the seventy-eight million Baby Boomers who have driven our economy for decades. Now even better news, traditionally there are five million young adults age 18-33 living at home with their parents, however this recent economy has forced twenty-nine million to stay or move back home. Just a clue, the kids aren't happy about it, and neither are the parents. A key figure in economics is the number of household formations are created per year. From 2002 to 2007 there were an average of 1.3 million households formed per year, starting in 09 we have dropped to around 350,000 households formed per year.
Think of it this way, there is a massive cork in the top of the bottle and it is about to blow. Just to satisfy the housing needs of this juggernaut of new buyers coming to the market will require 40 million more homes than we currently have available.
Let's take a look at who they are, and what makes them tick. They were born somewhere between 1977 and 1933. They are now between 19 and 35 years old. The average first time home buyer today is 31. In 2011 of all FHA loans 77% were first time buyers!
The Millennials are the first "Glocal" generation, they think globally and locally. They were raised in dual income homes, were children of divorces and day cares. They are the first generation that "everyone got a trophy." They are connected, protected, and well-educated. Multi-tasking was their survival mechanism, they have been over-scheduled from a young age.
They have always had voice mail, but hate to use it. Good luck getting them to listen to your message. They do not leave messages for each other, they look at the number of the missed call, if they know it to be a friend they call back, or simply text. They sleep with their cell phone, it is their extension of being. They are the Facebook generation, if you want to communicate with them, you will do so with texting or IM on Facebook. They also do not read emails, too slow for them. This is the most tech savvy generation in history, consider this, they will spend more than 1/3 of their lives (23 years) on the Internet.
This is one of the most diverse of all American generations, 37% are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. They are the largest 2nd generation immigration group in history, one in five has at least one immigrant parent.
In the next five years, as they start to move into management positions, salary and consumer confidence increases, there will be literally TRILLIONS more dollars spent every year in the U.S. alone.
When you want to communicate with them it won't be emails and it won't be by calling them on the phone, it will be texting and IM on Facebook. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but at least ask how they prefer to communicate and then honor it.
They will want to purchase starter property, they like the idea of being closer to town, they like to be able to walk to activities, think college campus when you are scouting properties. Their parents have been very involved in all of their activities and will be very involved in their home purchase as well. Maybe contributing toward the down payment as well. Be prepared to work with multiple generations throughout the process.
Who do they get their information? They are going to Google you, your company, and what you tell them. They will ask their Social media connections to give their opinions as well. The Millennials have grown up Googleling every homework assignment, they text classmates to find out what they found, doing so is part of the DNA. So don't be offended if they don't take you at face value but research what you tell them. It might be a great idea to have a Google Alert programmed for your name and your company to know what they might find. Don't be surprised if they Tweet or Facebook about the home, or even you while you are meeting. This can be great if they like and endorse you.
So here they come, the Millennials are coming of age and want a home of their own. Interest rates are at historic lows, homes prices are On Sale, here comes that wave. Are you ready? Paddle Now!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)