Your Love Life Impacts Your Home Buying Ability, Says NAR

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There is some interesting new real estate data to share today, and just in time for the Valentine's Day weekend.

For most people, the purchase of real estate is one of the largest financial transactions they will make. Buyers purchase a home not only for the desire to own a home of their own, but also because of changes in jobs, family situations, and the need for a smaller or larger living area.

In addition, your 'relationship status' is now playing a larger part in your ability to buy a home, according to the National Association of Realtors' new 2014 Home Buyers and Sellers Profile Report.

It turns out that married-couple home buyers are on the rise over the last few years, yet both male and female singles that are trying to buy a home is now declining.

Jessica Lautz, Director of Survey Research and Communications for the National Association of Realtors tells The World Property Journal, "Since 2010, the share of married couples home buyers has risen, while the share of single females dropped from more than 20 percent of home buyers to just 16 percent. Much of this is due to tightened credit conditions, but it is also a factor of fewer of first-time buyers in the market. First-time buyers are typically single and often competing with investors. Over the same time period single males have dropped as a share of the market, but have remained near their historical norm of about 9 percent of home buyers. Single males typically have higher incomes then single females which could be a factor."
 
NAR Home Buyer and Seller Profile Trends of 2014 Include:

• Thirty-three percent of recent home buyers were first time buyers, which is still suppressed from the historical norm of 40 percent among primary residence buyers.

• For 43 percent of home buyers, the first step in the home-buying process was looking online for properties and 12 percent of home buyers first looked online for information about the home buying process.

• Ninety-two percent of buyers use the internet in some way in their home search process and 50 percent of buyers use a mobile website or application in their home search.

• Real estate agents were viewed as a useful information source by 98 percent of buyers who used an agent while searching for a home.

• The typical home buyer searched for 10 weeks and viewed 10 homes--this is two weeks shorter than the previous year's report.

• Seventy percent of home sellers only contacted one agent before selecting the one to assist with their home sale.

• The share of home sellers who sold their home without the assistance of a real estate agent was nine percent. Forty-four percent knew the buyer prior to home purchase.