First-time homebuyers, specifically Millennials, are known to use the information they find on the internet to inform their decisions — particularly when they’re considering purchasing a home.
What’s increasingly interesting is that this group of homebuyers still respects and appreciates the insight of experts. A recent Response Tap survey showed that 64% of Millennial respondents prefer researching products and services online, but also value speaking to an expert to verify information they’ve found before committing to purchase.
To bridge these two concepts — Millennials’ desire to research products and services online while also relying on expert information — many loan officers have turned to MGIC’s homebuyer education program in their marketing efforts. Our program is designed to speak to first-time homebuyers in a language they can easily understand, digest and trust.
And even though we don’t market our homebuyer education website to consumers, they visited the website more than 250,000 times in 2015 and took nearly 90,000 tests.
So how did so many people find their way to our homebuyer education website? Some probably found it by searching on their own, but most discover our program from their loan officers. Many loan officers use our program as a lead generation tool — which is exactly how it’s intended to be used.
Our homebuyer education program meets Freddie Mac and HFA requirements. It also contains a direct link to the Framework test for those borrowers who need to meet Fannie Mae’s HomeReady requirements. And it features a unique benefit for loan officers: By registering for a homebuyer education code, loan officers will receive an e-mail notification any time the code is used by a potential homebuyer taking our homebuyer education test to earn a certificate.
Clever loan officers provide a link to our homebuyer education program from their homepages, include the program website and code on the back of their business cards, and even leave information about the program with their real estate referral partners to share at open houses.
First-time homebuyers are able to learn about buying a home using the method they most prefer — researching online, confident they are gleaning information from a reliable website provided by a local expert. And the loan officer receives a warm lead with little work.
To learn more about our free homebuyer education program, contact your local MGIC Account Manager.
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