Pitch your property to the right audience
If you have a home worth more than R1-million to sell, your marketing should be aimed at people over 60 years of age, as they are your most likely buyers.
On the other hand, if you are trying to sell a property in the R600 000 to R800 000 price range, your target audience should be people aged between 20 and 30.
“One of the most valuable real estate lessons learnt in the aftermath of the recession is that properties sell much more easily and quickly when they are carefully marketed to the correct buyer audience,” says Rudi Botha, chairman of BetterBond Homeloans.
A crucial factor when determining that audience is, of course, the income that a prospective buyer would need to earn to afford to buy your property.
“However, our latest stats show that it is probably just as important now to target buyers of the right age,” Botha adds.
He says that this may not be as simple as conventional wisdom would suggest.
“It might be expected that people in the ‘prime’ of life and at the peak of their careers in their 40s and 50s would be the buyers of the most expensive homes,” he explains.
“Similarly, one might think that people of traditional retirement age would be more likely to buy less expensive homes as they scale down to a simpler lifestyle, but, in fact, the average purchase price of homes bought by people between the ages of 40 and 60 has been below R1-m for the past year, while the average purchase price for buyers over 60 has stayed well-above R1-m.”
Botha adds that this says a lot about how property helps to build wealth, because those purchasing higher priced properties don’t only need a bigger income, but a bigger deposit, too.
“The average percentage of the purchase price required as a deposit on a property priced at R1.5-m or more is now at least 23 per cent, compared with just over 12 per cent for properties priced at R500 000 to R1-m,” he says.
“And, in most cases, these large deposits can only be afforded by older buyers who have had time to build up substantial equity in their existing homes.”
Meanwhile, these findings also have major implications for the way that homes should be presented for sale, because different generations of buyers have different needs and expectations and will thus be focused on different features.
“For example, empty-nesters who are over 60 might be buying more expensive properties, but they will most likely be looking for quality rather than quantity,” Botha says.
“The priority for family buyers in their late 30s and 40s, on the other hand, is likely to be lots of space and good value for money, while those in their 20s and early 30s will probably be focused more on low maintenance small homes, that are well designed, wired for technology and close to work, shops and entertainment venues.”
