Neighbourhood Demographics Can Make or Break Your Deal

Having a good understanding of the neighbourhood demographics in the area you are selling in is absolutely critical to you doing the best possible job for your clients. Being able to point out that particular demographics in an area you are recommending are suited to what your client is looking for could make or break your deal.

Neighbourhood information, such as the location of schools, transit and other amenities are a given, but when we say neighbourhood demographics we are talking about really digging into ‘who’ lives in a particular neighbourhood.

Step 1 is going to be to understand your clients’ needs. How do they plan to use the property? What is the make-up of their family? What are their personal and financial goals? Different clients will have different needs when buying a home, which we neatly separate into 4 groups: population information, household information, socio-economic information and cultural Information.

Population information – Potential homebuyers want to know the population distribution in a particular area, information like the percentage of male vs. female residents, distribution of population by age and even population distribution by marital status. Homebuyers with families want to know, for example, the % of married families in an area with children.

Household information – It is important to understand how your client intends to use the property that they are buying, as this may change what type of demographic information they are looking for. For example, a buyer who plans to rent the property they are purchasing may want information like average rents in the area, % of homes that are owned vs. rented, etc. Most buyers like to understand information such as the percentage of single-detached homes, apartments, semi-detached homes, townhouses and even the % of occupied dwellings in a particular area.

Socio-economic information – This is extremely valuable information for a potential homebuyer because it tells the homebuyer critical information about residents in the area. Things like the employment rate, education (high school vs. college vs. university), employment type (white collar, blue collar, etc.) and dominant professions can all have an impact.

Cultural information – Some homebuyers want to know dominant language, ethnicity and religions in an area that they are considering buying in.

Being able to answer these questions can make or break your deal because this could significantly increase a buyer’s interest in living in a particular area. The question is, are you equipped to provide your clients with the information that they need to make a buying decision or are you properly equipping your potential buyers with the information they need to choose your client’s property?

If you don’t use a tool that places this information at your fingertips, then you may want to consider checking out GeoWarehouse. GeoWarehouse gives you access to all of the information discussed in this blog and more.

Find out more about it here: www.geowarehouse.ca.