Millennials in this Millennium

The single greatest challenge I have faced in trying to help the Panama real estate sector is to break it out of its obsession with retirees, as in the opening years of the 21st century.  Today they come from all over the world and from all age groups, but you would not know that from reading the websites of those who promote sales to expatriates.

 So many Panamanians in real estate who have lived, worked, or studied in the US for periods of two, four, or more years still think they know who Americans are and what they are looking for.  Those who have no such experience have one advantage.  They know they do not know. 

The first group goes on doing the same marketing they did ten or twenty years ago and the second group follows, thinking the first group knows what it's doing.

I have studied the foreign relocation planning of Americans for nearly 20 years and have been interviewed or published on the topic on many occasions during the first decade of the 21st century when I was most active in this study.  In addition, I have operated RetirementWave.com, a non-profit website, and PanamaWave.com, a website providing service to relocators in a strategic partnership with Maurice Belanger, a licensed broker and owner of Belanger Realty Panama.  I also operate a YouTube channel for the same purpose.  I have met with more than 3,000 expatriates individually, not in conferences, visiting Panama to consider it as a new home, and I have corresponded with thousands more. I answer every email and every YouTube comment myself.

 Has anything changed? Let me sum it up in three simple words – everything has changed.

 I could write a book on this.  I have to work every day to keep up with the changes and that research consumes most of my time when I am not interacting with expats interested in Panama. 

I am going to look at just one market segment in the US briefly today.  I rarely saw them even as recently as five years ago.  Now, I see them, talk to them, and help them when I can.  I am referring to those between 25-34 years of age, often referred to as Millennials.  I would expand that range a little, at least to 40, but Kevin Drum, journalist and blogger, has been kind enough to provide the stats I will share today.

 Would this group of 45 million adult Americans have potential as relocators and home buyers or renters in Panama today?   How many of these “young people” have even owned a home?

 About 44% currently own their own home.  Some may be on their second.

 How indebted are they in comparison to older generations?  Isn’t student debt killing them?

They are smarter than you may think, they are “taking care of business”, and they have established their credit history in the process.

Note: The graph above does not mean that Boomers, for example, have an average of $45K in student debt, only that Boomers with student debt have that amount on average. The same is true for Millennials. (details here)

 But hasn’t their income level fallen below earlier generations when you take inflation into account? 

Let’s be fair and compare them with the two earlier generations (Gen X and Boomer) with examples of their average income at the same age, adjusted for inflation..

 Millennial homeownership is stable and higher than most people expect. Their debt level is not at all unusual in the US and does provide them with a financial track record that we can check.  Finally, their income is higher than both Gen X and Baby Boomers when they were at the same age.

 If you have not met anyone in this age group and you are in real estate, you are not trying.  They may not be numerous, but they are already here.  We could have more, but we need to market to them very differently than we have done in the past for retirees.

 Keep one more thing in mind.  The average young adult thinking seriously about living outside his or her home nation is not your “average” person of their age group.   If you have gotten negative impressions of this age group from other sources, drop them now.  Be open.  You may be very surprised to find they can be more “mature” in their approach than adults two or three times their age who visit Panama. 

 There is so much more I could say, but I will leave it at that. We are looking at this and other segments, and the channels to reach them.  Marketing is not just having a website. It is reaching out to people.

 Of course, we could follow the strategy that so many others seem to be following.  We could just sit and wait for them to come to us…