Millennial buyers look for certain things in home

Most buyers want a home that’s light, bright and sparkling clean. Millennials, the generation born between 1980 and 1995, also want a home that’s move-in ready, modernized and furnished with all the colors and comforts of a Pottery Barn store.

“No millennial wants to buy ‘grandma’s house,’” said Melinda Bartling, a home stager and Realtor at Keller Williams Partners in Overland Park, Kansas. “And a lot of them don’t want to buy their parents’ house. It needs to be hip. It needs to be fresh.”

Virtually all newly built production homes offer this look, but many older homes don’t even come close. A dilemma

That presents a dilemma for sellers: How can they update their older residence to appeal to these buyers?

The answer involves staging a home to make it more “presentable” to these buyers, said Paige Elliott, a Realtor at Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate in Park Cities, north of Dallas.

“Sometimes,” Elliott said, “it’s as simple as tweaking what they have. Sometimes they end up remodeling the kitchen and bringing in all new furniture.” The look

Sellers of older homes ignore millennials’ wants at their peril because these buyers comprised the largest group of home buyers in 2013, 2014 and 2015, when they accounted for 35 percent of home sales, according to the National Association of Realtors.

What’s more, according to the Realtors group, the typical home that buyers purchased in 2015 was 1,900 square feet, had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and — here’s the important point — was built in 1991, just 25 years ago.

Like many buyers, millennials want cleanlined furniture, uncluttered spaces, light-colored walls, dark-colored floors and bold patterns and colors. But that’s not enough to grab their interest.

“They want that glamorous, this-could- be-a-movie-set look,” Elliott said. “They like that because they want the lifestyle.” No fixer-uppers

Outdated homes that don’t offer the look millennials want might be ignored by this big segment of social mediasavvy buyers.

“To compete, you almost have to present your home that way,” Elliott said. “They may change it after they move in, but at least it looked cool when they went to look at it.”

Millennials aren’t just picky. They want updated homes because they don’t have the time, money or desire to fix up a home themselves, said Kathy Streib, a home stager at Room Service Home Staging in Delray Beach, Florida.

“They’re both working. They don’t have the discretionary income,’” Streib said. Updated decor

While the seller’s furniture typically doesn’t stay with a sold home, stagers say removing old decor and accessories can help to create the right impression.

Items on Streib’s hit list include shag carpeting, original light fixtures, heavy draperies, and mirror walls.

“Nothing dates a home worse than a wall that’s full of mirrors. You walk in, and it immediately said, ‘I was built in 1980,’” she said.

Once the dated look is gone, owners can put in hardwood floors, blinds and contemporary light fixtures to update their home’s appearance.

All-white walls are also out, though Realtors usually advise against strong, personalized paint colors for resale purposes.

Streib suggests muted colors that aren’t stark, but are still neutral.

Bartling also has a list of items that date an older home and turn off millennial buyers: » Doilies » Flowered wallpaper » Quilts » Chenille bedspreads » Dated recliners » Collectibles like cookie jars, salt-and-pepper shakers and figurines.

Sellers don’t need to trash their personal possessions, just pack them up and put them out of sight until they’re resettled in their new residence.

“Buyers aren’t there to look at the curio cabinet,” Bartling said. “They’re there to look at the house.” Equity drain

Elliott offers sellers who don’t want to bother with updating and staging some compelling data: sales prices of comparable homes that were and weren’t presented to appeal to millennials.

“We say, ‘If you keep it as-is, here’s your price. If you want to get the most (money) out of it, you’re going to have to do the following things.’ We make suggestions. We know what it needs. Then we bring in a stager. You can often make more money if you’re able to do these things,” she said.

Indeed, the bottom line is, well, the bottom line.

As Bartling puts it: “Sellers are giving up their equity, and it’s their own fault. It would behoove them to get the right mindset about ‘We’re moving on. We’re packing up. What can we do to spiff this place up?’”