The world changes in the blink of an eye. In the past, newspaper ads were the main source for home buyers to find a home but now buyers have online listings and apps that let them search by location and neighborhoods.

Read the top line findings to gain knowledge about real estate in a digital age:

Section 1: How Buyers Use Technology in the Home Search Process?

• Among all buyers, 44% said that they looked online for properties for sale, while 17% contacted a real estate agent and 13% looked online for information about the home buying process.
• Only 18% of Millennials said they looked online for information, while 53% of Younger Boomers looked online for properties for sale.
• Almost all of Millennials search on online websites, compared to 89% of older Boomers.
• 58% of Millennials and 46% Gen X mainly depend on mobile devices to find their home compared to 33% of Younger Boomers.
• Millennials reported that photos (89%) and online information about properties (85%) are more important than any other pieces of information.
• All buyers spend an average of 10 weeks searching for a home and see an average of 10 homes.

Section 2: The Utilization of Technology by Real Estate Firms

• Over 90% of realtors are also using e-mail.
• 93% of real estate firms have a website, compared to only 5% who don’t have one.
• Property listings are the most common feature on firms’ websites, with a rate of 95%.
• 48% of all firms surveyed indicated that keeping up with technology is their biggest challenges facing their firm in the next 2 years.

Section 3: Trends and Demographics in Realtors Technology Use

• 94% of respondents said they preferred to communicate with their clients through email with an average of 3 times a day.
• 94% preferred to use smartphones with wireless email and internet capabilities.
• Realtors who were 29 years and younger were most likely to have a real estate blog with a rate of 17%.
• Female realtors are more active on social media than males (74% vs. 66%).

Section 4: Keeping Up with Changing Trends

• Most of the realtors (62%) cited that smart locks were the most important smart home device to clients, followed by lights (61%), thermostats (60%), and Cameras (51%).
• 80% of realtors use Facebook, 71% use LinkedIn, and 32% use Google+.

A Graph Shows the Use of Social Media for Searching Homes in 2017