Are You Looking for a New-Build Colorado Home?
Updated May 02, 2016
Builders have worked hard to stay competitive within their chosen markets in the past several years. The homes have gotten better and more energy efficient, the floorplans are even more creative and functional, and all the available options can be a decorator’s delight. A strong market is built on many choices to the customer. Options allow personalization, but as many marketers know, too many choices can make the consumer run for the hills. Some have said that today’s housing market is one of too many choices. When you really need to make a decision on a new home, taking a sabattical is not always an option. So you look and look, visiting model after model. That is the time when the walls can start closing in. So many choices and people talking to you, talking at you in some cases.
However, I’d be happy to help to make sense of the concerns and questions which might be causing you to throw your hands up in frustration. Drawing upon 10 years experience working for builders, I help to simplify all of the stacks of diverse builder information into rational, comparative focus. What’s the difference between me as a former on site representative and a great but typical Realtor assisting in your new home purchase decision? It’s a bit like Neo finally being able to see the actual code behind the Matrix. He no longer needed the visual layer in order to grasp the concepts. I know, that’s an out-there example. However it does come to mind first, when trying to convey the value of a wealth of experience from the other side of the sales desk.
What subcomponent or task is most important when it comes to making a quality decision? Definitely the ultimate goal is to get above the noise and figure out which builder offers the highest quality new home at the greatest value, in the best community for you and yours. Simple statement, but a lofty charge. Not one builder I ever met is morally defective, and yet simple answers seem to be in short supply. Why is that?
In case you have not yet spent a day or two out there going from model to model, the next paragraph might offer a preview of some experiences you may be in for:
- Which plan is your favorite?
- What is your time frame?
- Would you like a cookie? How about candy?
- Let’s walk around on this lot, and then that lot over there. Premium 15K here and 65K over there.
- Which exterior elevation do you prefer, sir/ma’am?
- Did we forget to mention that there are three kinds of basements in Colorado?
- Finished basement or not?
- We are throwing some upgrade in for free only for a limited time at this base price.
- Let us explain again about our fifteen pages covering how our standard features differ from upgrades in the Clarkston Executive Series that you just toured.
- Are you qualified with a lender, great, which one?
If you have a sales background, you’ll notice that many of these are soft closes of various types. If the representative is really good, every one of the questions he or she selected to ask was custom tailored for your personality type – something ascertained about you in the first three minutes. You are encountering a highly refined, sophisticated process in most places. Is that bad? Of course not, that is, as long as you know the correct steps of that style of waltz. Otherwise, even the best, most educated buyer can stumble.
But, moving on from sales techniques and back to the larger point: Every one of these questions is, in actuality, attached to a real life decision that must be eventually made by any customer, before the first flag goes on the lot to get the build started. The list of decisions goes on and on. In fact, there are hundreds of elements in the decision process, to be sure. If only there were a great simplifier. There is: hire me.
However, I’m not standing across a plat map table from you dressed to the nines in a sales center, smiling face, while utilizing both verbal and nonverbal approaches to emotionally connect, while articulating salesmanship with brevity and humor. This is much harder; you can click off anonymously at any point. And I ask that you don’t. Instead, consider walking into a sales center with a trained professional on your side, looking out for you and helping to catalogue all that info in order to make the best decision.
By the way, I am very polite to on-site sales people. Confrontation, brooding and unfriendliness are unprofessional traits sometimes demonstrated by agents coming into sales centers with their buyers. It generally demonstrates that they don’t fully know what they are doing, or that they are using veiled derision as a way to convince their buyer that they are advocating for them. The trained on-site pro can deal with this quickly and sometimes even capitalize on it. Oh well, that’s another can of worms too involved for here. How would you like to walk in the door of a sales center with the Special Forces of sales at your side. A polite gentleman on the surface, but armed with a universe of knowledge, all deployed in the background to watch out for your interests. That’s what I seek to do and desire to become even better at, every day.
