Gen Z refers to people born between 1997 and 2012. Although they are called the younger generation, the oldest Gen Z is actually 25 years old and is starting to work as a newcomer in the workplace to "buy a car and a house". They are definitely a new group of potential customers for real estate companies everywhere.
Gen Z is clearly more experimental and innovative than previous generations, with a fresh sense of fun and "cool" things to do. Technology is inextricably linked to their growth, permeating a large part of their daily lives, and therefore their lifestyle and consumption habits are influencing and changing the old marketing models.
In the case of buying or renting a house, for example, Gen Z tends to use new real estate brokers such as PropertyGuru and Zillow, online real estate trading platforms, to reduce extra intermediate fees. They are also experimenting with new types of mortgages methods like cryptocurrency lending, for example Ledn's Bitcoin secured mortgage service, to manage their finances in a smarter way that they are familiar with.
With the advent of smart technology and the fact that some Gen Zs are no longer obsessed with owning their own properties, "shared housing" has become one of the most popular options. Nowadays, many online rental platform such as Badi which uses AI technology, and India’s Zolo, These platforms not only match customers with the right share and roommates, but also provide a record of utility expenses for each room, a rating system for roommates and landlords, and real-time updates on available rentals.
To reduce the burden of personal loan, some Gen Zs are even willing to co-own properties with strangers. The change is also evident in Gen Z's living environment requirements, as 62% of Gen Z tenants say they value smart home technology more than residential amenities, so the demand for home IoT has increased.
In the long run, Gen Z will be the main source of real estate sales and purchases in the Metaverse, they are accounting for 60% of Metaverse users, and one-third of Gen Z users has transacted in either retail or property sales. As a result, they are leading the development and advancement of new real estate market models, both in the real and virtual worlds.
All of these property management and transaction methods are part of PropTech, a new generation of young people who are breaking the mold of the real estate industry. In order to fully meet the needs of this new generation, the long-established traditional real estate market cannot avoid innovation and will need to adopt PropTech more extensively to make itself more attractive and competitive to new target audiences.
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