First-time Home Buyers Flock to Social Media for Advice

Young Canadians ready to dip their toes into the housing market for the first time may show signs of hesitation. However, the lack of experience diving into ‘mortgage waters’ forces young buyers to get resourceful. In an effort to familiarize themselves with the ins and outs of the mortgage industry, many flock to social media for advice.

Today’s young buyers will spend more time doing research than any other group before making a mortgage product decision. The first-time home buyer will conduct research for eight weeks compared to the national average of five weeks. Overall, one out of every five first-time home buyers will use social media to gather mortgage information and, of those users, about 12 per cent use Facebook, by far the most popular social network among first-time buyers.

First-time home buyers are an important group in the Canadian housing pool, they are more inclined to use social media to solicit advice and compare mortgage rates in Canada online than any other group in Canada. Benjamin Tal, a senior economist at CIBC said, “The group aged between 25 and 34 – is the age group that makes up the vast majority of first-time home buyers – will continue to grow.” Unsurprisingly, the biggest social media users are aged between 23 and 35. That means first-time home buyers, who represent a large portion of the buying market, are social media users. This makes it particularly important for banks, mortgage brokers and other financial companies to get more active on the social media front. The realization is that social media acts like ‘water-wings’ to help ease new buyers into the housing market.