I always look forward to receiving NAR’s yearly Member Profile. It’s a great way to get insight about my customers. It’s like I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars doing extensive research, but I didn’t, it only cost me about $150 bucks. I believe this last report came out in May but it’s full of interesting stats.
2012 Member Profile: Demographics
The 2012 Member Profile contains information on member business activity in 2011, member demographics and firm affiliation and business characteristics. Some demographic highlights:
▪ The latest data shows that 60 percent of members are female, and the typical age of members is 56 years old.
▪ The median age of NAR members has increased from 52 years in 1999 to 56 years in 2012.
▪ Forty-eight percent of REALTORS® have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
▪ The most common prior careers for members was in the management, business, or financial sector or in sales or retail.
▪ Three-fourths of members report real estate is their only occupation and nine in ten own their own home.”
The biggest mistake I see many vendors make is not paying attention to the first bullet point; Your average customer is a 56 year old women. Which means she graduated high school around 1973.
Now I realize that not all 56 year olds are the same. And some vendors say they are going to focus on technically savvy agents. That’s their choice, but truly great products are products that everyone can use. It reminds me of our motto at my first company, IRIS, LLC.
“There are no computer illiterate people, just people illiterate computer software.”
Ponder this as you go from a 10 point font to an 8 point font to make room for that must have button on your next web page or app.
