Real Estate Plugins Can Help Home Buyers Who Need Roommates To Pay Their Mortgages
Real estate plugins can help young home buyers attract renters to help with their home loan payments.
Let’s face it, living in urban areas is incredibly expensive and the use of real estate plugins is one way to help home buyers get into a property with the idea of renting out part of it.
Yes, home prices and rental rates are going through the roof in some markets. San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles are seeing record highs for prices. Ironically, Millennials want to move to urban areas more than ever. They are in essence, creating their own dilemma.
In addition, Millennials in most markets have held off the purchase of any property. They didn’t want to commit to a mortgage (even though, in another irony, mortgage rates are near record lows. A rate of 4% is still incredibly attractive compared to the 9% rates and higher we’ve seen).
One solution that is growing is a trend called “Co-Living.”
“What is co-living? It’s a concept that multi-family developers are now using to create “common” areas where several people can live together in one unit. Very similar to a dorm.
What does this have to do with a broker or agent?
Many home buyers today are looking at properties with the potential to rent part of the property out to help cover the mortgage.
It’s a smart strategy. The rental market is super-hot right now. If you own a home or condo in a decent location and can offer an attractive rate, you will get inquiries from renters.
This is where a real estate pro can paint a picture of how a property can be a good source of income.
And one of the best ways to paint that picture is with real estate plugins, such as the widgets offered by real estate data providers such as Home Junction.
Choose from a suite of real estate plugins
Sure, you can tell a home buyer this is a great location.
But why not SHOW them how that property is an ideal location on a map embedded on your website? Get the wheels spinning in the buyers head on how they can also use this information to attract renters.
For example, with the real estate map plugin, an agent or broker can point out a prospective property pulled from MLS data.
Then they can start displaying amenities within certain distances of that property.
Maybe it’s a coastal town and the property is located ten miles away from a beach.
Or perhaps it’s a hipster type town and the home is located three miles from downtown.
How about a plugin for local businesses in relation to a property? Alongside the listing, show a widget for businesses nearby. There’s a cool bookstore over here, just a mile away. Love Starbucks? Here’s a Starbucks and here’s a hip local coffee shop within a five-mile radius. A yoga enthusiast? Here’s a place where you can bend and twist within two miles. Sushi restaurants, clubs, book stores – point them all out in relative proximity to the home for sale.
That’s a powerful selling tool to attract renters…
School data is a must for any real estate website
How about schools? There are quite a few single parents in society. They are all looking for inexpensive places to rent. Great schools would be an enormous draw and in fact, the main draw for them.
Provide a feed on your website with current school data plugin. Show buyers a comprehensive overview of schools in the area with student/teacher ratios, school demographics, etc. (Also provided by Home Junction).
What are trends for home prices in this area, a young home buyer might want to know. With a real estate plugin for Recent Property Sales, an agent can quickly give that consumer a sense of comfort that property prices have been trending upward in this market for the past few quarters.
Conversely, want to attract sellers in a hot market who have the perfect home that would appeal to renters? Offer the Home Junction Home Estimator widget. Sellers will continually use this plugin to check out the value of their property. One day they are going to decide to sell. Make sure they are on your website when they make this decision and have easy access to a lead form or a phone number.
The challenge of convincing consumers today to purchase a home might seem enormous in current conditions. Inventory is low. Prices are high. Millennials are still reluctant to take out a 30-year mortgage.
But real estate pros know challenges come with the territory.
What’s encouraging, is that today, with big data and geo-spatial technology, brokers and agents have an incredible array of inexpensive real estate plugins at their disposal. Tools they can display on their own website (and make sure they keep their clients on their website or generate their own leads).
Some consumers will want to consider adding renters as a home buying strategy. Maybe that’s the only way they can get in a home. That’s fine. You can help. And with key real estate plugins integrated into the local MLS, you will have the best tools to assist them.