More than one-third of buyers bid without seeing home in person

By Kelly Leighton
March 7, 2018
2 min.

Thirty-five percent of homebuyers last year reported they put in a bid without first seeing the home in person.

This is an increase of 2 percent in November and December 2017 from May 2017, and 16 percent from June 2016, according to Redfin survey. Of generations, millennials were most apt to make offers without seeing a home in person, at 45 percent, followed by Generation X at 28 percent and baby boomers at 6 percent. Instead of traditional homebuying, more and more consumers are relying on virtual reality home tours and videos.

Does that have to do with lack of inventory on the market? It appears that way.

More than 60 percent of buyers have been looking for a home to buy for at least three months. The National Association of Home Builders found that 61 percent of potential buyers have been looking for a minimum of three months, while 39 percent have been searching the market for less than three months.

What’s the holdup? Forty-two percent reported they ‘can’t find a home at a price I can afford,’ while 36 percent said they ‘can’t find a home with the features I want.’ Still, 34 percent reported they ‘can’t find a home in the neighborhood I want’ and 27 percent said they did find a house in their price range, with the features they wanted in a neighborhood they liked, but were outbid after making an offer.

However, Pennsylvania may be bucking the national trend. PAR’s Welcome Home survey found that half of new homebuyers took less than three months from the time they started searching to the day they closed on their home, while 75 percent of buyers said the process took less than six months.