Market sees more minorities, move-up buyers

The make-up of house-shopping families in the Las Vegas Valley is changing as more minorities pursue home ownership and more adults are living together under the same roof, Steve Bottfeld of Marketing Solutions said.

Bottfeld, senior analyst at Marketing Solutions, discussed the company's quarterly housing market survey with real estate professionals last week. The survey polled 500 prospective buyers at 25 communities around the Las Vegas Valley.

He said agents need to take note of the growing minority market. The survey showed about 69 percent of those in the housing market are white -- the lowest percentage in the history of the survey.

Hispanics now comprise about 11 percent of those shopping for homes, after doubling to 8 percent in 1997. Blacks account for 10 percent and people of Asian Pacific origin account for 5.6 percent of the market, a number that has doubled in the past two years.

"If we don't start looking at how people behave and how they live, and their product desires, we're going to be selling homes to ourselves," Bottfeld said.

Not only is the racial composition of the home buying market changing, the number of families with three or more adults is increasing as more adult children return to live in the family nest and as elderly residents move in with their children.

That has an impact on product design. Those types of family units result in the need for more bedrooms in a house. About 10 percent of the shopping market includes three or more adults, Bottfeld said.

In other trends, more home shoppers are making their second and third buys in in the market. About 14 percent of the shoppers have lived in the Valley less than a year, a number down 7 percent from nine months ago. People who have lived in the Valley five or more years now comprise the bulk of the market, about 45 percent. That means buyers are moving up to more costly homes, said Bottfeld.

"We're looking at a much stronger equity transfer market than in the past," Bottfeld said.

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