By: Eleanor Bowman, Director of Marketing, BDX

What if you could get inside the minds of today’s home buyers and their real estate agents to better understand what motivates them, what inspires them, and what leads them to take action? Over the past year at BDX, we have conducted extensive home buyer and real estate agent research to help our builders do just that. Here are some of the highlights:

Most buyers start their home search with an interest in new homes. 54% of home buyers start the process with a preference for or interest in new homes but only 8% end up buying new. What a tremendous opportunity to inspire and educate this group about the advantages of new home construction! Our newly launched website, StartFreshBuyNew.com is a good place to go for ideas. The site is currently seeing over 50,000 visitors per week and driving over 10,000 searches for new homes. Also, if you’re a client with BDX, you get access to our “Start Fresh. Buy New.”  toolkit that’s full of useful statistics, videos and graphics about driving the benefits of a new home.

Home shoppers start their search with an open mind. 95% of all shoppers have no specific builder in mind when they start the buying process. Are your homes listed where they will find you? What messages are you sending to capture their mind-share? Make sure that you’re not only making a great first impression but that your marketing programs are keeping your brand top of mind.

One third of all shoppers say they are tired of their current home. When we identified the triggers that started buyers down the home search path, this was at the top of the list. “Favorable home prices” and “low interest rates” were also high ranking answers.

The buying cycle is longer than we thought. Two-thirds of all shoppers will take 9 months or more to purchase a home. What does this mean for your business? Builders who are disqualifying home buyer leads who are not ready to buy immediately may be missing out. This longer sales cycle makes lead nurturing critical so consider a steady stream of communications to your prospects.

Using video in your online marketing inspires buyers to take action. We found that builders who embedded video in their listings on NewHomeSource.com saw leads increase by 28% and click-throughs improve by 36%. So while we have known that video is an engaging marketing tool that can also impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it is now more important than ever as a lead conversion accelerant.

It’s important to showcase your communities, not just your homes. Builders who included community images along with their home renderings or photos saw a 28% lift in leads on NewHomeSource.com. So make sure you have the digital images to highlight your amenities and neighborhoods – buyers want to know what life will be like outside of the home’s four walls.

Most buyers will use a real estate agent to help them buy their home. 84% of buyers will engage the services of an agent to help find their next home. What is your agent outreach strategy? Do you have good communications and trainings for agents in your area so they are educated about your homes and buying process?

Consumer promotions are very important to real estate agents. We asked real estate agents, “How important is it to know about builder promotions when you are putting together recommendations for a buyer?” Half responded that consumer promotions were critically important.

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 you about how this information can shape your business. For more information, contact BDX at Info@thebdx.com.