Data: More Than Three In Five U.S. Consumers Would Consider Buying A Home At Auction
With the expiration of the foreclosure moratorium, more homes are expected to hit the auction market in the coming year – creating an additional option for consumers to purchase property, particularly while supply in the market is tight. ServiceLink, part of the FNF family of companies and the nation’s premier provider of tech-enabled mortgage services, today unveiled data from a recent survey that shows a majority of consumers are open to achieving homeownership through options like auction.
The survey, conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of ServiceLink, includes insights from more than 3,000 U.S. consumers to better understand their perceptions of the overall housing market and their attitudes towards purchasing a home at auction.
Key findings from the survey include:
- More than one in four U.S. consumers (28%) are not aware that you can buy a home at auction.
- More than three in five U.S. consumers (62%) would consider buying a home at auction, with one in ten (10%) saying they have done so.
- Millennials (ages 25-40) are more apt to consider buying at auction than their older counterparts. Seventy-five percent of millennials say they would consider buying a home at auction, compared to 65% of Gen Xers (ages 41-56) and 54% of baby boomers (ages 57-75).
- One-fifth (21%) of millennial consumers have bought a home at auction, compared to 13% of Gen Z (ages 18-24), 6% of Gen Xers and 4% of baby boomers.
- Potential cost savings (70%) and a faster homebuying process (57%) are motivating factors for more than half of U.S. consumers to buy a home at auction.
- Alternatively, not being able to see the home in-person prior to buying (66%) and not being able to get a professional inspection (62%) are factors that would stop U.S. consumers from buying at auction.
- Forty-two percent of U.S. consumers say the ability to bid remotely (online) would motivate them to buy a home at an auction. For millennials, this jumps to 55%. Younger generations show openness to using remote bidding tools, which can make auctions more accessible, as travel is not necessary in order to participate.
- Many U.S. consumers anticipate the suburbs will continue to thrive, with 41% saying they believe the suburbs will continue to be popular areas for homebuying in 2022, and only 12% believing Americans who left big cities will return to them to live.
- Almost half of U.S. consumers (45%) expect home prices to increase in 2022.
- Almost two-fifths of U.S. consumers (39%) believe there will be an increase in foreclosed homes available for purchase at auction in 2022.
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