Buyer and Seller Trends - 2012

Our real estate market on Marco Island is unique in many ways.  The value of our property is well above average.  The age of our typical customer is a little higher than average.  Heck, our market really doesn't relate much at all to the average American real estate market but I'm going to share this with you anyway.  Sometimes it's valuable to see the big picture so you can find a perspective on the Marco Island real estate market.

The graphic above was intended for real estate agents but there are some interesting stats within it that you might find interesting.  The most interesting for me is the percentage of people that use a real estate agent.  It's 89%, up from 69% in 2001.  So, in the age of the internet, Realtors are becoming more necessary, not less.

Probably the least useful, or the least relavant stat for us here on Marco Island would be the first-time buyer stats.  We don't have many.  Heck, we really don't have any.  When a customer buys on Marco, they sometimes have twenty real estate transactions under their belt. First-time buyers make up 39% of the market over the entire U.S.  Here on Marco, I'd be surprised if it was 2%.

Around 40% of buyers and sellers are referred to their agent by a friend or a relative.  On Marco, this is probably slightly less.  Because a high percentage of our customers are strewn over the entire country and are only here in the winter, they tend to be less connected to their neighbors on Marco than they are up north.  This is why we rely on BuyMarco.com. It gives our absentee buyers and sellers an online home on Marco so they can stay in touch with what's going on down here.

Real estate stats of any kind are interesting to geeks like us here at The Boyle Team, but Marco Island is different.  To see how the real Marco stats are shaping up, take a look at the Marco Island sales statistics for last year. they are pretty impressive.