Strategic Residential Marketing

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 »

My wife, Stephanie, is a big fan of the television show, Dancing With the Stars, although after last night’s results show, that may soon change. For those who may live in a vacuum (or just don’t care), Brandy, an obviously talented performer and dancer was voted off while Bristol Palin, the pleasant enough but completely untalented daughter of the ex-governor of Alaska and Republican nominee for Vice President, advanced to the semi-finals. Stephanie, now dreading the real possibility that Bristol may actually win, has vowed to stop watching the show if that occurs.

I have nothing against Bristol Palin and I personally could not care less about who wins next week as the result will have no impact whatsoever on my life except for the fallout from my wife from which she will recover. But for the next seven days I know that I will be an unwilling participant in several more rehashed discussions as to how it is possible that Bristol could receive these millions of votes. I have tried to explain to my wife that there are several possible reasons why this could have occurred:

1. The entire population of Alaska, now that summer has passed, has nothing to do and therefore they all voted several times for their favorite daughter (or granddaughter), not dissimilar to the inconceivable success of Sanjaya on American Idol Season Six where the only possible explanation is that the call centers of India flooded the voting;
2. There is a conspiracy among competing networks to dismantle ABC’s top show;
3. The rejuvenation of the Republican Party and the strength the Tea Party movement as manifested in the mid-term elections has been extended to a campaign to move beyond politics to American culture and, in a foreshadowing of the presidential nomination for 2012 and a show of strength, the members have made their power and feelings known. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of my readers who may not be into Jazz or are younger than I (that would be the majority), “Take the ‘A’ Train” is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn that was the signature tune of the Duke Ellington orchestra and is arguably the most famous of the many compositions to emerge from the collaboration of Ellington and Strayhorn.  Composed in 1933, after Ellington offered Strayhorn a job in his organization and gave him money to travel from Pittsburgh to New York City, Ellington wrote directions for Strayhorn to get to his house by subway, beginning “Take the A Train.”  Interestingly, NASA honored the composition with the creation of the A-Train satellite formation which placed 5 satellites in sequential orbit, providing scientists with different sets of nearly simultaneous observations so they were able to improve their study of climate change.

There was an interesting article posted today on Reuters.com with the headline “Homeowner confidence fell in second quarter: Zillow”. The story went on to state that “Homeowners were less confident about the value of their homes in the second quarter, with one-third believing home prices had not yet reached a bottom…Nevertheless, a significant number of homeowners said they planned to put their home up for sale in the next six months if they saw signs of a real estate market turnaround.”

I was sitting in a community sales office today waiting for the sales team to finish their morning chores.  This community is well conceived and professionally marketed and continues to maintain a healthy sales pace and profitability for the developer and the homebuilders.  When the sales team and I got together I started our discussion by sharing this article with them and asking their opinion.  Universally, the immediate response was negative, ranging from “that’s why we are having trouble selling Windstone (a move up village)” to “it seems that this bad market will never end”.  

My immediate thought was “we need a new sales team”.  But after a moment’s reflection and recognition of the reality of the marketplace today, that thought changed to “we need more sales training”. Read the rest of this entry »