Strategic Residential Marketing

There are many numbers that are essential to a successful homebuilding operation.  Land acquisition and development costs must be reasonable and competitive as does the cost of materials, labor, interest and G & A.   But when “push comes to shove”, the only number that really matters is sales.

 Let’s assume the minimum absolutes: 

1,   You have an acceptable location where the neighborhood home values support your pricing, the site is convenient and accessible and people wish to live there;

2.   Your homes are well designed, providing the sizes, styles, utilization and features that the market desires and they are offered at appropriate and competitive pricing and values;

3.   Your company has an established image and reputation within the local market for quality, value and service.

Those “numbers” are minimum requirements, the basic essentials to get us to the starting gate to be able to sell a new home but they do not even begin get us to the finish line.  If we cannot sell an adequate number of homes at a profit then the other numbers are of no importance whatsoever and we are merely “also rans” in the race to success in the homebuilding industry.  In fact, if we are to concentrate our efforts on the true components of success, we probably should rename our business the “home selling” industry. Read the rest of this entry »

There was an article on-line earlier this month that forecast the date when print editions of newspapers would no longer be published in each of the major metro areas.  New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles were among the few metro areas in which the forecast suggested a life extending beyond two or three years so it would appear that my hometown newspaper will soon be writing its own obituary and I will not be sad when that occurs.   

I live in South Florida and used to read the Sun Sentinel, a Tribune publication. My wife still enjoys browsing the Sunday travel and lifestyle sections and perusing the ad circulars as well as glancing at the Friday weekend section to see what movies have opened and read the reviews but I had always preferred the main news and business sections.  Earlier this year I decided to simply stop wasting my time as there seemed to no longer be any “news” being reported. 

The main headline and front page story in yesterday’s paper was titled “Home Vacancies Nearly Double In S. Florida”.  This paper has been featuring stories almost daily for the past two years on the decline in real estate values, the residential foreclosure fiasco, and the death of the homebuilding industry so one has to wonder why this story was news.  But more importantly, upon actually reading the article, it was apparent that once again the publication was merely trying for sensationalism as the headline, while true, was very misleading. 

The article included a large map, color coded to reflect current vacancy rates in each of the cities within Broward County (Fort Lauderdale MSA) with a key to the chart showing vacancy rates in percentages ranging from “up to 10%” to “42% to 50%”.  9 of the cites showed rates of “up to 10%” which by its very title is prejudiced as 0% would be included in this category; a small inset noted that one town within this category had a vacancy rate of only 3%.  15 additional towns showed rates of 10% to 20% (again, a wide range allowing for substantial disparity) while only 5 municipalities, all of which have high incidence of resort/vacation/second home usage, had vacancy rates over 20%.  While failing to mention the fact that South Florida has always had a higher incidence of home vacancies than many other markets due to seasonal usage, the article did mention in the body copy that the countywide vacancy rate was “in the mid teens and rose only a few percentage points (from 2000).”  Read the rest of this entry »

Due to the many requests I have received, here again are my New Year’s resolutions for new home sales professionals, updated for 2011.

Hey kids, what time is it? No, it’s not Howdie Doody time; it’s time for 2011 and the New Year which brings a chance to do things right as new home sales professionals. I am happy that 2010 is drawing to a close and I am certain that many of you who have decided to make a career in new home sales share that feeling for it certainly has been one of the most challenging years on record for the homebuilding industry. So let’s make some resolutions for the New Year to aid our success in 2011.

• We will adopt a positive attitude which should be easy as 2011 is guaranteed to be better than 2010 for residential development and new construction as the homebuilding industry is on the road to recovery;

• We will work smarter and harder – we are professionals in homebuilding and new home sales so we will repeat our successes and learn from our “almost successes”;

• We will come to work every morning with a smile on our face and a song in our heart, ready to sell a product that people actually want and need; Read the rest of this entry »