We hear about the “Baby Boomers”, the “Gen X and Y ” and the “Millenniums”….what does this have to do with the future of mortgages? In the latest issue of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) newsletter we learn that Gen Y will set the pace for the upcoming decade by their buying habits. Michael Murphy tells us….

“Financial institutions see Generation Y—a tech-savvy age group ranging from 15 to 29 in age—as a potentially lucrative but also more traditional demographic than previous generations, with nearly 80 million consumers and an overall annual income of more than $200 billion.”

Gen Y worries about their financial future because of tensions in job security, social security and future retirement, but in a recent Deloitte/Harris study showed only 31 percent of eligible Gen Y employees participate in 401K plans.

The Javelin Strategy & Research study showed Gen Y as more traditional in financial activity. In Javelin’s study of 2,800 consumers, it showed Gen Y as not ready to abandon the brick-and-mortar channels of financial institutions despite the group’s proclivity to initiate online transactions and use mobile phones.

When selecting a new financial services provider, Gen Y consumers ranked access to ATMs and access to branches as more important than online service capabilities, in comparison to other age groups, according to Javelin’s data. In the past 12 months 80 percent of older Gen Y used an ATM for either a deposit or withdrawal, nearly 60 percent used an automated telephone system to perform a banking transaction, and 90 percent visited a branch, demonstrating an apparent demand for multi-channel availability.

So what does this tell us?? If we are going to be successful in selling to this group we will need to provide a full array of avenues for them to contact us….not just new technology but the ole’ fashion “let me help” you “in person” sort of way.

Denise