In March, some of the nation’s largest home builders will band together to launch a multimillion-dollar campaign aimed at persuading potential buyers about the appeal of new homes specifically built by professional custom home builder services. The campaign is mostly targeted at first winning over the buyers’ real estate professionals.

Eighty-four percent of 1,000 buyers recently surveyed say they are working with a real estate agent or expect to, according to a study by Chadwick Martin Bailey, a consumer research company.

“That’s a statistic [builders] can’t ignore,” says Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Hanley Wood, a publishing company centered on the building industry. Builders “need them to sell their value.”

The mostly digital ad campaign, “Start Fresh, Buy New,” is being launched by Builders Homesite Inc, a high-tech marketing company owned by a consortium of 32 of the country’s largest builders. The campaign will emphasize new-homes’ quality of construction, safe neighborhoods, improved floor plans, and lower maintenance costs. It will also welcome agents and brokers to new-home communities and emphasize why “new” is better.

The campaign also will attempt to get new-home communities on the multiple listing service. Often new-homes are not on the MLS until the home is completed.

Builders currently account for about 7 percent of all home sales, but historically that percentage is usually around a 15 to 20 percent marketshare.

“It’s not that people aren’t buying, it’s that they’re buying existing homes,” says Tim Costello, BHI chief executive. “It’s not a demand problem, it’s a marketing and messaging problem. Other builders aren’t the competition, it’s existing houses.”

The author of this article is: realtormag.realtor.org

 See the original post at: http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/01/29/builders-want-agents-help-in-attracting-buyers

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