The 2011 National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers surveyed 5,708 home buyers and sellers and found that home buyers who use the web in their home search differ in other behaviors and demographics than buyers who do not use the web and the findings may surprise you.

It is no surprise that the typical buyer who used the Internet is younger, averaging 42 years of age with non-web searchers averaging 60 years of age. What is surprising however, is that buyers who used the web are actually more affluent, despite the assumption that an older buyer is more affluent – the typical buyer who used the Internet in their home search has a median household income of $83,700 compared to those who did not use the web whose median household income is $60,300.

Buyers who used the Internet to search for a home searched double the length of time than those who did not incorporate the Internet in their search. Buyers who did not use the net used fewer sources in their search, as buyers who did use the net to search for a home used various sources with higher frequency with 56 percent also using yard signs (compared to 46 percent of buyers who didn’t use the net), while 46 percent of web searchers used open houses as an additional source (compared to only 34 percent of buyers who didn’t use the web).

Buyers who search the Internet are more likely to go to open houses and call on yard signs, contrary to the popular belief that web searchers stick to the net – the research shows that typically, buyers who search via the Internet have an inherent interest in researching deeply.

Bottom Line: Internet Users Are More Valuable

The icing on the cake is that 90 percent of buyers who used the web to search for homes use a real estate agent as opposed to the 70 percent of buyers who didn’t use the net. The standard belief is that tech savvy shoppers are often anti-agent because of various startups that have launched over the years to supplant real estate brokers and agents, but it hasn’t worked, in fact, the opposite has occurred.

The bottom line is that Internet users are extremely valuable – they earn more money, are more likely to look at offline marketing, are more likely to go to an open house and above all, they are much more likely to actually hire an agent.

What about you? Obviously if you’re reading this story, you’d fall into that “Internet User” category. Do you feel these statistics from the NAR survey are true, or not? We’d love to hear your opinion. Just click the comment link below and tell us your feelings about this survey.