In episode 1 of Refiner’s Gold, we asked you why a “Gift In” transaction – a large cash deposit explained by the customer as a gift – is $15k on average, while a “Gift Out” transaction – customer draws a large amount of cash and explains it’s intended as a gift to someone else – is $40k on average.
It’s a bit of a mystery, isn’t it? Common sense says that for every gift received there’s a gift given, so isn’t the amount supposed to be more or less the same?
Well, we left out an important fact: we’re not talking about the same customer in both cases. In fact, the population of customers receiving a gift is very different when compared to the population of customers giving a gift, and the #1 feature explaining the variance is: customer age.
44 is the median customer age for receiving a gift. This means half of the customers providing a “Gift In” explanation are under 44, and half are over 44. Note that we’re not talking about, say, a $50 gift. These are sizeable gifts that are given because the family needs it – the average amount is $15k for a received gift.
But the median customer age for giving a gift is quite different – it’s 72. By the time a customer is 72 years old, they’ve amassed money that can help their children or grandchildren’s families in times of need. The average amount for a gift given is $40k.
These stats were for receiving or handing out a gift. If you had to guess, which of two – 44 or 72 – happens to be also the median age for real estate related transactions? Stay tuned for answers to this question and more in future episodes of Refiner’s Gold.
