Winners of 2016 W3 and Davey Awards!

BuildersUpdate.com has just been recognized by the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts (AVIA) with both a Davey Award for the best in Web & Design and a W3 Award for creative excellence on the web.  These awards recognized the agent-focused website for setting a standard of excellence for user experience. Builders Update was selected atop a list of more than 5,000 qualified entries.

 

BuildersUpdate.com takes pride in the outstanding service we provide our customers. Using our patented tools, agents, MLSs, builders, and homebuyers can now have greater access to new construction properties nationwide. Builders Update remains dedicated and focused on increasing cooperation between the builders that build new homes and the agents representing the pre-qualified buyers who purchase them. We are truly honored to be recognized as a leader for our New Homes Construction Network.

Connect with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, talk to us at 512.901.9899, or visit us at www.buildersupdate.com.

 

About Builders Update

Builders Update is the #1 online source for new home inventory. We use the latest map-based search technology to bring the most comprehensive and accurate listings of to-be-built homes, condos and lots directly to real estate agents and homebuyers. Our patented system consolidates everything an agent needs to know in one location they can access 24/7 and is fast, easy to navigate and secure. Our unique collaboration tools grant builders and vendors exclusive visibility to agents while bringing new levels of transparency and accountability to the agent/builder relationship. We provide homebuyers with unprecedented support, guidance and information in order to make informed decisions about the purchase of their dream home. Builders Update is a privately held company headquartered in Austin, Texas

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Housing Finishes 2014 Up by David Crowe

Total housing stats for 2014 topped the one million mark for the first time since 2007. Census and HUD reported December housing starts and revised estimates for October and November that pushed total construction to 1,005,800 for 2014. December levels were up 4.4% from November at 1,089,000. The late year push was led by single-family construction up 7.2% in December to an annual level of 728,000, the highest monthly rate since March 2008.

Multifamily construction held virtually even at 361,000, down 0.8% from November. For the year, multifamily starts were up 16% to 358,000 and also the highest since 2007. Regionally, starts were up in three regions but down13% in the Midwest from an unusually high November. Single-family starts were up in every region except the Northeast where they were down 7%.
Total permits were down, led by a 12% fall in multifamily permits to an annual level of 365,000, which was still up 9% for the year. Single-family permits rose 4.5% in December and finish the year at 629,500, up 1.4% for the year.

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Agents, put together the pieces of selling new homes

When a real estate agent walks into a new homes sales center with his customer, the sales person at the community can be certain of only one thing…that there’s a real estate agent in the sales center.

My point being…builders feel an uncertainty about what type of agent they are about to encounter and what kind of experience lays ahead of them when that door opens. They wonder… Is it an agent who’s sold new homes before? Or is it an agent who is new to new home sales? Is it an agent who feels a need to prove their worth to their client at every step? Or is it an agent who understands the construction process and otherwise “gets it”?

The reality is that any one of these scenarios is a possibility and every one of them has been seen before at a community near you. This is understandable since not all real estate agents sell new homes. But like with almost everything else in life, the more you do it, the more comfortable and confident you become. There’s certainly no reason to fear selling new homes. On the contrary, selling new homes as an Agent can open up new inventory to you and can actually be a competitive advantage in your personal marketing.

Here are five tips that can help Agents without much new homes sales experience enter the world of new homes sales smoothly.

1. Make a preemptive visit. The best way to understand what you are walking into when you bring your client to a new homes community is to visit before you bring your client. Again, this suggestion is for those without much experience selling new homes, which is estimated to be about 70% of agents. Talking with an onsite sales person will give you an opportunity to voice any concerns and questions you might have without having to do so in front of your client. This would be a good time to find out about commission policies, construction expectations, product details, etc. It’s also good to know the sales people by name, so that when you walk through the door, you look like you’ve been there before.

2. Talk to a seasoned new homes agent. You will likely have no shortage of questions. Some of them will likely include: How long does it take to build a home once your customer has selected one? The answer to that varies depending on the type of builder (volume or custom), sales backlog, sub-contractor scheduling, etc.  How is the sales contract different from what I’m used to? When can I expect the builder to pay my commission? What kind of challenges and successes have you had selling new homes? Educating yourself on the front end will help ease concerns and makes you look like a seasoned professional.

3. View the onsite as a teammate. Look, the reality is that onsite sales people want to work with you, and want to help you sell your customer a home. But what happens all to often is that an inexperienced agent feels the need to prove to his customer that he’s the smartest person in the room…thereby justifying his position with their client. This pits agent against onsite. In fact, a recent Builders Update builders’ survey found this issue to be one of the biggest challenges builders face when working with new agents. This chest thumping does little to help the sales process along. In just about all cases, an agent and an onsite have the same motivation, that is to find the best possible home for the buyer. It’s okay that the onsite sales person knows more about the homes in their community. They should. Let them provide the information they can to help you best advise your client.

4. Understand what can be negotiated. Negotiating sales price is not usually an option at new home communities. What are often on the table are incentives and promotions. It could be special financing, discounted options, closing cost help, etc. Knowing what’s available on the front end, makes you look good in front of the client. Where do you find this information? Well, you can obviously get it from the onsite sales person, but it’s also often found on the builders’ web sites. Many builder sites feature Agent Portals which require a secure login and provide agents this kind of information along with commissions, bonuses, etc. Of course, Builders Update provides this information as well.

5. Communicate. Builders know that you own the relationship with the buyer. That said, it doesn’t hurt to remind an onsite sales person that you should either be the gatekeeper of information or at least be copied on all communications with the client. This alleviates insecurities and promotes transparency with the sales process.

 

At the end of the day, selling new homes should be easy. An onsite sales person does a good bit of heavy lifting from the sales and contract perspective. But as an agent new to new home sales, putting in the time to educate yourself, and going through the experience of closing a couple of new home sales, will make the process easier in the future as well as pay dividends to you and to your customers.

Not WHAT, HOW!

In previous posts I’ve talked a lot about the “questioning” techniques used in active listening.  However WHAT is said only makes up 10% of communication, the other 90% is para-verbal communication and body language.  Para-verbal communication are all the aspects of speech that are not the actual words; the tone, the cadence, and the pitch, essentially it’s HOW something was said.  Paying attention to your para-verbals is key to establishing real communication.  However even more important is paying attention to your buyers para-verbals. These will convey level of interest, whether or not there are unstated concerns that can sink the deal, the level of fear or uncertainty the buyer is experiencing, etc.

 

Communication

Here’s the best part… by understanding your client’s para-verbal communication you’ll be able to build trust by sending the very clear message that you are more concerned with the client than you are with your commission.  For example: ”Paul, I’m sensing a little bit of uncertainty in your voice. I’m here to make sure that you’re taken care of in this process.  What are you feeling uncomfortable about?”   Imagine the powerful reaction and great information you’ll get by simply paying attention to your client’s para-verbal communication.

Here’s a shocking revelation…

…builders and real estate agents don’t always work together as well as they should. If you’ve worked in real estate, this is not exactly news.

But the reality is that there are very good reasons these two groups should value each other more.

Now, there are certainly agents who understand how to sell new homes and communicate with builders in just about every market around the country. And there are builders who understand the value of real estate agents and their needs and challenges in most markets too. Yet, probably less than 15% of all active agents pursue new home sales. There are a couple of reasons for this.

You would think that the main reason has to do with builders not wanting to work with agents in order to save money on commissions. There’s some validity to this. Yes, agents strive to earn and protect commissions, and builders strive for increased profitability. If a builder can sell a home without paying an agent commission, more money falls to the bottom line, right? While this statement is true, most builders are smart enough to understand what this short-term boost in profitability costs them in the long run.

Builders who don’t actively pursue agents risk losing one of the most valuable sales channels available to them. According to NAR, some 88% of homes sold are sold with the help of a REALTOR. Builders who spend their time chasing the 12% of sales that don’t come with an agent will likely miss out on the bulk of the market and often miss their sales goals. Even if this strategy works short term in extremely hot markets where builders can’t build homes fast enough to keep up with demand, those markets are rare. And even when they exist, they don’t last forever. Most builders understand that actively pursuing and marketing to agents builds strength within that agent “sales channel” for when markets inevitably contract. They gain sales, and they gain market share.

So if most builders understand that agents have value and offer them qualified buyers, why then would builders NOT want to work with them?

Builders Update recently conducted a builder study on builder-agent relations, and what we found was that while most builders perceived agents as coveted business partners, there was a percentage who found agent-related sales to be aggravating and challenging. The biggest reason for this, they said, was that some agents don’t understand the new home construction and sales process. According to the builders interviewed, that lack of understanding and education about new homes can leave agents who typically don’t sell new homes feeling vulnerable and even intimidated in front of their clients. Not a position they want to be in. That, in turn, sometimes often leads to less-than-cooperative relations between agents and on-site sales people.

The key to making the relationship between these two parties work, is education. Investing in new homes education can pay dividends to agents. Builders offer agents expanded inventory, often sales incentives and a competitive advantages over agents that don’t sell new homes. To their credit, there are a number of builders that offer significant agent outreach, and there are a number of brokers that offer new homes education to their agents.  Check with your local builder and broker to see what’s offered in your area. It’s worth the effort. You can always reach out to Builders Update as well. We can help put you in touch with builders in your area.

 

Contact Us: 512.901.9899

$#!*…I’m not old…

Last week, for the first time in my life, I bought reading glasses…I could no longer deny it…the glare in the restaurant  wasn’t why I couldn’t read the menu…it’s not just that I’m tired….it’s not that I have been working on the computer too much….it’s that I’m getting OLD!!!…OK, well maybe not old….just seasoned.  But then again maybe it’s not so bad, the changes I have seen in the world of real estate are dramatic, the methods and tools real estate agents use are far more efficient than they were 25 years ago.  But efficiency isn’t the most important factor in getting clients and closing sales….it’s people, understanding them, communicating with them, and putting their needs before your own.  For all the changes that we have seen in real estate, those three staples never change.  The human element is the most important factor in real estate success, and it always will be.  The common thread in real estate agents who have sustained years and years of success is their knowledge of people and their ability to communicate effectively with them….and yes I am wearing my reading glasses while writing this.

Back to school, back to basics, the three R’s….Reply, Remember, Retain

Reply to prospects immediately.  The most basic of all sales rules is follow up with prospects immediately.  The faster you reply to prospects the more will convert to clients….it really is that basic, no psychology, no fancy techniques.  Just reply to prospects immediately. 

Remember what they tell you.  While you’re working with the client remember the little things they tell you; very often it’s the key to finding the home the client “has to have”  After the sale, remember to stay in touch with your buyer because remembering to stay in touch leads to the third R…Retain.

Reply and Remember will lead to retaining your clients.  One of the most basic truisms of of real estate is that buyers become sellers.  The client you represented on the buy side, will likely turn into a listing for you later.  So in this back to school season keep the three R’s in mind…Reply, Remember, Retain.

If You Hate To Ask, Then Don’t

Several years ago a good friend of mine went through an intensive year long training program at the Albert Ellis Institute to become certified to practice this type of therapy, which states that a person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions should all be congruent.  At the graduation ceremony, my friend approached Albert Ellis, the creator of Rational Emotive Therapy, and asked…”Mr. Ellis it’s an honor to meet you; I hate to ask but would you autograph a copy of your new book for me?”  Mr. Ellis replied “If you hate to ask, then don’t” and proceeded to walk away.

I love that story because it’s the perfect illustration of how we find something valuable and useful, take the time to learn it, and then fall back into the old habits that we were trying to solve in the first place.  Last month I wrote a post about asking all clients if they had considered new construction and the impact that would have on an agent’s business regardless of the client’s answer; and I really enjoyed the quantity and quality of comments.  I’m curious about how many of the people out there who liked the idea of asking every client if they have considered new construction, has actually begun utilizing this tip. So I’d love to see some feedback about whether or not some of have tried this tip, and what kind of conversations came from that question.

Builders Are Like A Box Of Chocolates

Home builders are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get. (Thank you, Forrest Gump)  I know this because I’ve been helping builders market their homes for the better part of the past 25 years. This is a diverse group of individuals with varied backgrounds. So it should come as no surprise that their policies and attitudes about working with the agent community are just as varied.

Nothing illustrates this point better than my recent trip to Austin, Texas last month. While spending the week with our management team, I also had the opportunity to visit with a handful of builders of different sizes.  These were fact-finding meetings where we shared information, and I talked about our plans for Builders Update.

If you haven’t been to Austin recently or haven’t read about it: it’s a red-hot market. Most builders are selling homes as fast as they are building them. It’s always interesting to me to see how builders react to agents in this type of market. Do they pull back on their marketing efforts to agents? Are they marketing to them at all? Do any of them dare to reduce commissions or pull them altogether?

Wisely, all of them said they still work with agents and still pay agent commissions. However, two of the six I met with said they pulled back their agent marketing significantly, and indicated that they don’t want to encourage agent sales in a hot market. On the surface, their argument may seem logical from a business perspective. I mean, if you can make a sale and not pay a 3% commission, why wouldn’t you do it, right?

The reality of this on-again-off-again agent marketing strategy is that builders potentially risk much more in the long run than they stand to gain in the short term…mainly market share. The fact is that most builders lean heavily on agents in down or even average markets. So those who slow or stop marketing to agents stand to lose ground in the market place when sales inevitably slow down (everywhere but in California, but that’s a blog for another day).

A local division of a national builder I met with in Austin even said they are continuing to expand their marketing efforts and incentives to agents. Their reasoning: when the market falters, they want to be one of the builders agents turn to with their customers. It’s a forward-thinking strategy.

The good news in all of this is that builders and agents value each other.  And just about all builders are agent friendly in good markets and bad. It will be interesting to see how each marketing strategy plays out in Austin over time when the market eventually cools. Stay tuned.

Agents, take advantage of this opportunity as the market shifts!

Earlier this week I was catching up on some reading and came across this article (http://owl.li/yooiy) in the Wall Street Journal talking about how experts are predicting that a shift from building high end, high margin single family construction in limited quantities to low end and mid-range, lower margin single family homes in greater quantities could take 1 – 2 years.  To some extent it goes without saying that this shift will help relieve the inventory shortages we are experiencing which will be good for buyer’s agents; however I think there is another coming opportunity as the market shifts.

As “lower-end” home production increases by larger production builders, we will begin to see the small local builder start to come back  again.  This resurgence will present opportunities for agents to be listing agents for small local builders.  If this opportunity is one that a new agent would like to take advantage of as the market shifts, you’ll need to be able to walk into a listing presentation showing the builder a track record of success with new construction.  In short, be sure you are asking every client if they have considered new construction because it could lead to you closing more new construction deals; and building an impressive track record of being the buyer side agent in new construction deals now will help you become the listing agent for new construction deals later. Any thoughts?