Month: April 2014

Chances are, you might have some pretty basic, black and white renderings of your floor plans and elevations. But is that truly enough to display your stunning home designs? Today’s home buyers crave new technology and shopping experiences; and according to a  Bokka Group study, about 85% of home buyers today say that high quality renderings and photo galleries are influential in their purchase decisions. We’ve come a long way in the art of home renderings and they are almost unrecognizable compared to their predecessors.  Check out some examples of how far the building industry has come below!

   Rendering Circa 1975

                                     Today’s BDX Photo-Real Rendering

Renderings are often the first impression a buyer will see from your homes and we’ve made setting the buying mood simple. In addition to standard color renderings, you can add a third dimension like watercolor effects or choose between day and night lighting. And if you’re holding back because of price, it’s time to take another look at your options — technology and expertise have come a long way in recent years. Not only has the quality of renderings improved significantly, but prices have also come down making photo-real options more affordable than ever. Our renderings are specifically tailored to your individual needs. A typical 3D industry standard rendering offers a clear and unique perspective of your home or community and includes:

  • Near photo-realism
  • Regionally compliant landscaping
  • Customizable backgrounds
  • Night/day options
  • Quick-turnaround delivery

BDX is an industry leader in the art of renderings and even has recently partnered with Payne Family Homes in the St. Jude’s Hospital Dream Home Fundraiser. In fact, we are excited that we were able to donate one of recent renderings of the dream home to become the poster for St. Jude’s Hospital’s Dream Home to help sell advance tickets. (Read more about it here)

Professional and realistic renderings are wonderful statement pieces to add to your website and sales centers and provide authentic pictures of the new home life to help get buyers excited. Renderings not only bring your homes and communities to life but also visually engage online and in-person visitors.  Want to see examples of builders who are doing it right? Check out the BDX renderings gallery here.

If you’re ready to paint your homes in a whole new light, contact info@thebdx.com and check our Renderings page.

Happy Earth Day from everyone here at BDX! Today is an important day to raise awareness about environmentally-friendly home innovations; and it’s no secret that home buyers are going green. Nearly 35% of all construction presently falls into the green building category.

The green consumer is changing with buyers no longer just being motivated by saving the environment, but they also are going green to save money, show their patriotism, and improve their overall health.

The green movement is also proving to be no passing fad. In fact, according to a report from the U.S. Green Building Council, by 2016 it is estimated that half of the commercial and institutional buildings will be green structures. That’s why it’s vital for builders to market their green features effectively.

In order to keep up with the movement, BDX offers many different resources to help builders market their energy- efficient features. Here are just a few of the ways that BDX can help you as builders turn your green features into green:

Contact us today if you’re ready to turn over a new leaf and better market your green features!

Recently, NewHomeSourceProfessional.com, the premier new home web site for real estate professionals, has been moving full speed ahead with updates that have increased site visits and leads. Are you taking advantage of this valuable opportunity to connect with agents and do you have specific marketing programs in place to respond to agent leads? Read on to learn more.

We’re always looking for ways to better position new homes and provide the best information to agents. Some of our recent NHS Pro updates include:

  • Launched new weekly newsletter to further engage agents. We’re putting your new home information in local real estate agent inboxes each week — just in time for the weekend.
  • Launched a resource center with helpful how-to articles for agents — one of our goals is to help agents better understand new home advantages and be better prepared to sell your homes.
  • Added CRM tools to help agents track their activity for buyers.
  • Added fields for builder commission and agent policies — are you including these with your datafeed or are you updating manually? Make sure you’re not missing out on this chance to get this information directly into agent hands.
  • Developed partnerships with dozens of brokers and MLSs to put your new home data in front of agents.

And these changes are paying off with more visitors and leads:

  • In 2013, NHS Pro more than doubled the number of monthly unique visitors and visits to the site.
  • NHS Pro has also increased the number of leads per visit by 35%.
  • Just last month, NHS Pro set a new site record for total leads delivered to builders.

Are you taking advantage? Upping the ante with specific follow-up to agents

In addition to our general improvements to NHS Pro, these updates have brought increased agent leads to our builder clients. What that means is that when you list with BDX, in addition to home BUYER leads, you will also be receiving leads from the real estate agents that represent them. Make sure that you have a specific and different process for following up with agent leads as opposed to buyers since both groups are motivated by different things.

It’s a fact that real estate agents are a vital component of the home buying process with nearly 85% of buyers planing to use one. Real estate agent leads can be some of the most qualified and motivated, so following up is the key to closing more deals. This means that you should review your responses to these leads to help maintain productive, long-term relationships with agents in your markets. It is so important for you to understand their perceptions—good and bad—of you (the builder) and how to better communicate in a more personal way. We recommend the following:

  1. Include agent-specific messaging in your communications. Avoid putting agents into a consumer email marketing campaign – this only serves to alienate agents (and their buyers) in your markets.
  2. If possible, reach out with a personal email or call, as opposed to an automated email campaign.
  3. If you use an automated email campaign, limit the number of emails and include an unsubscribe link. Providing them with meaningful content and inventory updates should keep them engaged to actively read your emails when they come through.

These steps will help you develop agent leads and foster strong working relationships that yield sales for years to come.

Not a BDX builder client? Contact us at info@thebdx.com to find out how to list your homes and have them featured to this exclusive real estate agent audience.

Over the past two years, Builders Digital Experience has conducted extensive home shopper research in conjunction with our Start Fresh. Buy New. initiative to help builders understand what motivates, inspires and leads shoppers to take action.  This year, we expanded our study to not only include shoppers, but also consumers who bought a home in 2013, to learn about their buying and/or shopping process and what they think about new construction vs. resale.

Prospective Home Shoppers

53% of shoppers are considering new construction over resale as they begin their home search. This number has increased by 3% over the past year. To put this into perspective, if just 3% of these people bought a new truly home, it would mean 126,277 new homes across the country and $30 billion worth of business for builders.  What a tremendous opportunity for the home building industry!

Increases in income, favorable home prices and simply being tired of their current home all play large roles in triggering the home shopping process.  But don’t think that the process will be a short one.  We’ve found again that the buying cycle is getting longer. More than two-thirds of shoppers plan to take 9 months or more before making a purchase decision. This makes lead nurturing critical to your marketing efforts so be sure to consider a steady stream of communications to send to your prospects.

What are these shoppers looking for in a home?  Quality construction, safer neighborhoods, better floor plans and lower maintenance costs are top purchase considerations so be sure to emphasize these features in your marketing materials.  Consider removing rooms people don’t use from your floor plans and add that space into places where they spend the most time, such as a separate media room or into a larger master suite or closet.

Real Estate Agents

You may be surprised that 48% of agents across the country prefer selling “New” homes but often feel it is hard to learn about new properties, inventories and promotions.  Agents crave information, and before they bring a buyer to your community, they want to understand your commission policy.  Publish your policy on both your website and your listings, and when possible, make sure you include buyer registration guidelines and standard commission percentages.

By keeping your listings up to date with this information, an agent is more informed and knows what to expect when working with you.  This transparency will both endear you to agents in your market and get their buyers into your sales office.

Recent Home Buyers

We are losing 34% of shoppers who actually prefer new construction to resale.  We call this group the “lost shoppers”. Why is this happening? We all know all of the benefits a new home provides versus a resale.  But some consumers have concerns and doubts about quality of construction, neighborhood safety and the price tag of the home.  A house is the biggest purchase a person will ever make and they want to be confident in the decision they have made for years to come.  Alleviate their doubts by highlighting building certifications and standards you build to (i.e. LEED, Energy Star, local building requirements) as well as nationally recognized professional designations you have and professional associations your belong to.

Include a Quality Built section on your website that explains your company’s beliefs in building a quality product, warranties you provide, safety features and product lines that are used in your homes.  A Frequently Asked Questions document explaining the building process, what to expect and local statutory requirements will help educate shoppers and build trust with you and your company.  Also, reiterate the low costs of living and hassle free lifestyle that comes with a new home.

Over two-thirds of these “lost shoppers” say that the national real estate sites were their most trusted resources for finding a home but local sites also play a huge role.  So if you want to convince this group of shoppers to buy new, advertise where they spend time…on real estate sites such as New Home Source, Move New Homes and realtor.com®, to name a few!

We found that buyers also relied heavily on real estate agents with 86% of ALL recent buyers using one.  One thing “lost shoppers” have in common is that 91% of them used an agent.  Knowing this, it is important to build strong relationships with your local agents as it will help you convert “new preferers” to “new buyers”.

These insights are just the tip of the iceberg. We have a full suite of research resources and tools that are available for our clients and are happy to talk with any builder about how this information can shape your business. For more information, contact BDX at Info@theBDX.com.