Partnership helps fill market need as survey shows that Chinese buyers prefer new construction homes.

China’s most popular international real estate website, Juwai.com, has signed an in-depth partnership with Builders Digital Experience (BDX), the leading provider of digital marketing and sales solutions for American home builders. BDX works with over 1,000 builder clients across the USA and operates the number one new home listing site, NewHomeSource.com.

The BDX partnership will allow Juwai.com to provide its more than 2 million users per month access to new home listings from leading single-family new home builders across the USA. BDX is the leading source for up-to-date new home information with over 110,000 new home listings updated daily.

For the first time in China, consumers will have access to the same pricing, availability and feature information as consumers in the USA. Every listing will be professionally translated into simplified Chinese.

Tim Costello, CEO of Builders Digital Experience, said, “Our mission is to help builders use the Internet to not only reach buyers but also connect with them. By partnering with Juwai.com and translating new home listings into Chinese, we are tapping into a significant and proven market opportunity giving our clients access to these 1.3 billion potential buyers.”

Matthew Moore, Juwai.com’s Head of the Americas, said, “Some Chinese buyers in the US have a strong preference for new homes, but until today it has been very hard for them to discover or research these listings. Builders Digital Experience is finally making it possible for us to offer them tens of thousands of new homes from as many as 1,000 builders across the country.”

Do Chinese Buyers Prefer New Homes?
In a recent survey conducted by Juwai.com, when asked to rank on a scale of one to 10 how strongly they would consider a new home, Chinese would-be buyers of US real estate gave their highest average ranking, 7.3, to “a brand new home offered by a builder.” They ranked “an existing home” at 5.8 and a “custom-built home” at 5.05.

What Are the Top Priorities for Chinese Buyers of US Homes?
In the same survey, Juwai.com asked Chinese buyers for their priorities when buying a home in the United States. Obtaining a safe neighborhood was the top response, with 82 percent of the total.

Convenience was second and named by 63 percent of the respondents. Other popular priorities were proximity to good schools (57 percent), an established neighborhood (56 percent) and quality of construction (50 percent).

The least important factors were the character and uniqueness of the home (12 percent) and the ability to customize the home (14 percent).

Juwai.com’s Mr. Moore said the following about the results:

“While most Chinese actually purchase existing homes, there is a strong cultural preference for new homes. When a new home is also located near good schools or other conveniences, it really has an advantage.”

Moore continued, “New home builders have a product that is very appealing to Chinese buyers, whether they are pure investors, or intend to live in the property, The fact that it is new suggests the home will be of a higher quality and in better condition than an existing home that has been lived in.”

“Because three quarters of Chinese buyer inquiries in the USA last year were at least partially related to education, builders should emphasize in their marketing the quality of local schools and proximity to area universities.”

“With domestic buyers, builders spend a lot of effort emphasizing the quality of the homes they build, but with Chinese buyers they need to do just as much to communicate why the community over all is an attractive place to live.”

About the Survey
Juwai.com conducted the survey from 18 March – 31 March 2016. Chinese likely property buyers participated in the survey online and by phone through the Juwai.com Chinese Consumer Support Centre. The data does not reflect any official opinion of Juwai Limited nor its employees.

About Builders Digital Experience
Builders Digital Experience (BDX) is a leading provider of digital marketing and sales solutions for home builders. In addition to hosting the top new home listing site (NewHomeSource.com), and providing distribution of new home listings to hundreds of real estate websites, BDX offers website development, interactive floor plans, photo realistic renderings, and digital sales solutions to builders and real estate developers. Together these online and interactive resources help builders create a true digital experience for their buyers. For more information, visit http://www.theBDX.com.

About Juwai.com
Juwai.com is the No. 1 Chinese international property portal, with more than 2 million visitors from 403 cities in China and 165 countries and showcasing 2.5 million listings from 89 countries. The company was named the top international real estate website in China in both 2014 and 2015 by China’s peak e-commerce body and in November 2015 won Red Herring’s Global Top 100 award. Juwai.com is headquartered in Shanghai, with an additional office in Hong Kong. For info or to advertise: http://list.juwai.com

Each week our BDX digital marketing consultants and executives are out and about meeting with builders and helping them understand how they can use online marketing, media and technology solutions to improve their business. Here are some of the highlights from BDX in Action this week!

BDX in Action: Week of June 20th, 2016


Amy Alexander at the Northern Illinois Home Builders Association Golf Outting. It’s always fun to share our HBA member benefits with Builders from the HBA.
Builders Digital Experience's photo.

Mckenzie Landon catching up with the Director of Marketing at Manor Homes, Sam Newell
Mckenzie Landon-Manor Homes

We were an exhibitor at PCBC this last Wednesday and Thursday. We met so many great people and had a wonderful time!

PCBC 2016


Advance Publications came into the office this week. It was great getting to meet them!

Advance Publications

Search, Evaluate, and Design Your Home – All Online

Today’s builders are using technologies to simplify and accelerate the home buying process for buyers who are relocating from another city. Now at every stage of the process, technology is key for shoppers to search, evaluate, and design their new dream home.[Tweet This]

 

Buyers start by exploring new homes and communities online with resources like NewHomeSource

Going online to search for new homes is especially convenient for relocating buyers who want to do as much research as possible before visiting their soon-to-be new home town. Portal sites like NewHomeSource provide all of the tools you will need to showcase your new homes and communities and catch the attention of these out-of-town buyers.

From hundreds or even thousands of miles away, buyers can punch in their desired zip code and search criteria, including square feet and number of bedrooms. Your communities and homes are displayed for them, giving you a great chance to make a first impression and connect. You can include photos, renderings, and floor plans, as well as home, community, and school details with your listing to give these buyers the complete picture as they are creating their shortlist.

So now that you’ve captured their attention, it’s time to wow potential buyers with media assets that allow them to feel truly immersed in your homes.

 

Let buyers virtually tour your homes with 3D Matterport Tours

A growing number of top builders are now using BDX 3D Matterport Tours which enable remote home buyers to virtually experience the complete model home by exploring room-by-room. Buyers can see what a home looks and feels like by taking a self-directed tour of each available model, exploring every room and interacting with the spaces just as you would in person.

In fact, BDX Matterport Home Tours offer several advantages over in-person model home tours. When buyers visit a typical community in person, they are only able to see two or three models. In any model home, you see only the options built into that model. With BDX’s technology, shoppers can see all of the models, multiple views of a home, and a variety of available elevations, fixtures, and finishes. In short, this technology can take buyers that much closer to touring the exact home you desire. [Tweet This]

But let’s not stop with just touring the home, what if buyers could start designing their home and selecting options online?

 

Envision the home of your dreams

In addition to product visualizers and interactive floor plans, many are taking things to the next level with Envision, the home building industry’s leading online design center platform. Builders that use Envision on their sites enable home buyers to customize their dream homes online, choosing options from more than 200 manufacturers. This tool is available to home shoppers 24/7, from the comfort of their home or office.

From this online design center, buyers can explore photos and descriptions of everything from bathroom fixtures to exterior elevations. They can select upgrades to make their home unique, and see the design option prices and the impact on mortgage payments.

Without ever leaving their living room, home shoppers can research new homes, tour them, and start picking out fixtures, appliances, and finishes. Technology has given buyers more access and information than ever before – they are used to dynamic and visual experiences when shopping online. Are you living up to their expectations?

For more information about connecting with and engaging today’s new home buyers, contact BDX at info@thebdx.com.

 

If you use a smartphone to control your home security system, a smartwatch to program your thermostat, or an Amazon Echo speaker to dim your lights, you’re an armchair revolutionary.

What Is IoT?

The “Internet of Things,” or IoT describes the embedded connectivity of devices that can send and receive data from sensors, from the internet, and from one another. Companies are working on designs and software for “gateways,” which will connect control circuits with devices. The possibilities for the homebuilding industry – and for simplifying the lives of everyone who wants to relax at home – are astounding.

Tap Your Inner Inventor and Imagine the Possibilities

To envision the possibilities for homebuilders, just imagine that every device and appliance in your own home has a brain, a voice, eyes, and a keen interest in you. Every device listens, talks, receives, and sends information. Your thermostat could respond to your garage door opening by adjusting the temperature when you come home from work. Your lights could dim when you turn on the TV (even dimmer if it’s a Netflix movie). Your shower could turn on two minutes after your alarm clock goes off. An IoT home would be enough to make George Jetson envious. [Tweet This]

IoT devices can not only communicate with one another; they can also use a combination of sensors and web data. Think of a refrigerator compiling a grocery list as it empties, scanning its own contents and taking information from your Food Channel, Epicurious, or Whole Foods profile. It can then place an order for home delivery, completely eliminating every grocery task you do right now, except unpacking. The longer you own your refrigerator, the more it learns what you and your family want and when you want it. It’s even possible that a Pandora type app could give you recommendations based on the foods you currently enjoy.

An interconnected system of windows can close before a storm, heeding an automatic Weather Channel storm warning. Those same weather feeds could prevent your sprinkler from wasting water in the rain. Imagine that! Air quality sensors in your HVAC could tell you when it’s time to change filters, and sensors on your floor could tell you when it’s time to vacuum – or unleash the Roomba robot. That stovetop you accidentally left on could shut off when your front door sensor tells it you’ve gone to work. Or perhaps the sensor in Fido’s collar could do the same when he barks goodbye at the window. Poor Rosie the robot won’t have a job in the homes we’re about to inhabit.

Homebuilders may soon be able to offer many of these features, integrated into HVAC systems, kitchen and bathroom appliances, flooring, and more. We’ll also have advantages over the sellers of individual products and systems in that we can innovate centralized controls to manage all of these processes even more efficiently.

IoT will also change the way we think about communities. Monitoring systems could bring cost efficiency to neighborhood lighting and power systems, supplying power where and when it’s needed, to reduce HOA costs for homeowners.

Tap the Brakes When the Possibilities Become Strange

As easy as it is to visualize improved convenience, cost savings, efficiency, and safety, it’s just as easy to imagine this trend leading to overzealous innovation. Who needs toilets that study our bathroom behaviors or “track lighting” that follows us through the house, lighting our way as we go? The creepy factor will be a reason many such bad ideas never make it to market. Hopefully.

No doubt IoT will also trigger a perceived loss of privacy. Will the Internet of Everything lead to Privacy for No One (let’s name this PfN), with homes that feed corporations and the government data about citizens through appliances? Will insurance companies be able to learn about our diets from our refrigerators, or our workouts from our home fitness equipment? Homebuilders will need to balance the promises of technology against some of the risks. But first movers may enjoy great advantages, especially with tech savvy Millenials.

According to Intel, the number of IoT devices will grow from approximately 15 billion in 2015 to 200 billion just five years later in 2020. [Tweet This] If this exponential growth rate for smart, embedded devices proves true, we as homebuilders will have an opportunity to provide our customers new levels of comfort, convenience, and security. We just have to foresee all of the possibilities, good and bad.

Each week our BDX digital marketing consultants and executives are out and about meeting with builders and helping them understand how they can use online marketing, media and technology solutions to improve their business. Here are some of the highlights from BDX in Action this week!

BDX in Action: Week of June 6th, 2016


McKenzie Landon having a wonderful time meeting with Marnella Homes in Portland, Oregon!

McKenzie Landon-Marnella Homes in Portland


CEO Tim Costello & Andrea Medeiros at Tech Home Builder discussing the digital transformation of new homes.


Regional Sales Manager, Pam O’Malley and Digital Sales Consultant, McKenzie Landon are taking the northwest by storm and stopping by and meeting with some wonderful clients: Renaissance Homes, Manor Homes, New Tradition Homes, and Pacific Lifestyle Homes

Pam Omalley-Mckenzie Landon w-clients in OR WA


BDX had a new set of interns start! Here they are being trained and getting started.

Interns-edit