Model Homes that Sell
Model Home ideas that help sell homes
Frugal but Memorable Decors
Sep 11th
Let’s face it – we are all worried about spending more than we need to now more than ever. Show homes are a great way to get exposure, but since they are open a limited amount of time we have to be sure that the investment pays off long term.
Partnership merchandising is always something that the Home Idea Factory has been very active in, and one of my favorite homes that I was able to work on was the Ronald McDonald Show House in Rochester, NY. The home was a partnership between @home Builders, The Ronald McDonald House and The Rochester HomeBuilders Association. All of the furniture, decor, and accessories used in the home were donated by the community to the Ronald McDonald House for their annual ABC Sale that is the major fundraiser for them. With myself in Dallas and the home and merchandise in Rochester, was it a challenge to be able to find the right items for the home? Absolutely, but that’s what made the home unique, and showed the over 25,000 visitors how they too could decorate their home with gently used items and have something they can be proud of.
It was a win for all parties involved – the builder saved money on his merchandising costs and didn’t have to worry about what to do with the model furnishings after the show (all was sold or auctioned off raising over $25,000 for Ronald McDonald House), Ronald McDonald House raised great awareness and funds, and consumers got excited about using what they had and attending the ABC sale.
To see what the home was all about we did a video of the home.
Family Style
Aug 6th
As I’m sitting here watching my grandchildren, neices and nephews run around having a blast thsi week I’m realizing what’s missing from most of our model homes – life. Real Life isn’t perfect, and that’s what makes things interesting. It’s those special touches like a handwritten note from a 4 yr old or a handprint on the wall that make us remember how precious life is.
That’s why I love being a Lifestylist – it’s all about injecting those memories that make life exciting into living spaces that then become very personal.
Model Home Merchandiser vs Stager: Which is Right for You?
Jul 25th
Where did the Summer go? It seemed like just yesterday I couldn’t wait for the kids to get out of school, but when I went to Target the other day they already had winter boots on display! Technology seems to be moving us forward at warp speed, and as part of that the information age bombards us every day with new ways of networking, socializing and doing business. Who would have ever thought a few years ago that Facebook, Twitter and even blogs would become household names and important parts of our marketing processes?
A word and process that I am hearing a lot of confusion about is staging, and how that is different from merchandising or even designing/ decorating.
According to Wikpedia yet another newer source of information: Home staging is the act of preparing a private residence prior to going up for sale in the real estate marketplace. The goal of staging is to sell a home quickly, and for the most money possible by making a home appealing to the highest number of potential buyers. Staging focuses on improving a property to make it appeal to the largest number of buyers by transforming it into a welcoming, appealing, and attractive product for sale. Many people believe that staging raises the value of a property by way of reducing the home’s flaws, depersonalizing, decluttering, cleaning, improving condition items, and landscaping. For vacant homes, staging furniture is used to create a living space the buyer can “see” themselves living in. Properly executed staging leads the eye to attractive features while minimizing flaws.
The Institute of Residential Marketing – an educational arm of the National Association of Home Builders defines Model Home Merchandising as the following: The overall purpose of merchandising is to sell new homes faster by increasing the perceived value of the new home. It demonstrates the lifestyle interiors of targeted buyers, is based on market research and helps the buyer begin to see themselves living in the new home. I am a national instructor for the IRM courses and highly recommend that anyone seriously interested in taking their knowledge of the builder marketing process to a graduate level take these courses. It’s been proven time and time again that a MIRM can outsell and out produce a candidate that hasn’t taken the classes.
But back to merchandising vs. staging. This is my definition and I would love feedback to further help in defining these two new important terms.
Merchandiser:
- Involved from start to finish with the project
- Is a part of the “team” and is there for meetings, walks, and decisions involving the construction and design of the model
- Does the research as well as using builders research to define buyer profile, lifestyle and target market of the model
- Does color and material selections involving the design of the home
- Makes suggestions on floorplan and construction to help with traffic flow and increase sales
- Responsbile for purchasing, receiving and installing everything included in contract ie: drapes, furniture, artwork, accessories, etc. This can vary by needs and budgets.
- Re-Merchandising -if the buyer profile changes after the models have opened be available to builder to re-position merchandising of home
Stager:
- Work with individuals to redesign their homes to help sell
- Work with builders to stage their existing inventory to sell
- More of a lease / rental short term solution than a long term purchase
- Involved with homes already built instead of under construction
There is a need for both services, but I think that we need to be very careful to define those services so we don’t have disappointed customers. I have a feeling there will be more to come on this topic and I’m looking forward to sharing any new information I come up with!
Referrals are Priceless
Jul 23rd
Nothing can hurt or help more than words and they are something that’s truly priceless.
I was checking my LinkedIn page today and saw that a few people had given me recommendations including Sam Weidner Jr who was the VP of Patriot Homes and who had written the following:
“I have had the honor and the privilege to see a true artist at work. I hired Suzanne Felber to help Patriot Homes take a new, innovative, and aggressive role in helping redefine manufactured homes as people new them. Without question she tackled that task with enthusiasm, and a creative vigor unlike anyone had seen in our industry at the time. Suzanne has a brilliant mind for knowing design trends and how to present her designs in a way that attracts buyers from all walks of life. With her help Patriot was able to win over 9 housing design awards including an award for best marketing campaign awarded by the NAHB. If you want your products to look the best the hire the best, Suzanne Felber.”
Service Category: Professional Lifestylist
Year first hired: 2002
Top Qualities: Great Results, Good Value, Creative
It’s one thing when you think that you have given a job your all, but when you receive something like this out of the blue it makes you want to go out and work that much harder, and give that client a big hug!
I’m honored to have worked with Sam and his company, and I’m looking forward to working with him even more in the future!
New Model Home and Staging Program
Jul 12th
Lifestylist Suzanne Felber and THIF have put together a new concept that at this time is only available in the Dallas Fort Worth area. We are offering special pricing and including discounts on furniture, accessories, staging, and model homes.
You must register to access to the new site – contact us at: ashley@thif.net
It’s Homearama Time!
Jul 4th
Where did the year go? It’s hard to believe that once again it’s time for Homearama in Rochester, NY. We had so much fun last year, and the best part was that @home Builders was able to raise a lot of money for the local Ronald McDonald House.
The Home Idea Factory was honored to be the Lifestylist® for the first Ronald McDonald / Homearama House and as always David Riedman and @home Builders was the first builder to step up to the plate. This year @home Builders will be building a “Barkitecture” home that will also be shown and sold at Homearama. As someone that runs a sanctuary for animals I applaud the Rochester Home Builders Association and @home Builders for making people aware of how many animals need homes.
Lollypop Farm is a wonderful organization that helps put loving pets and families together – congratulations to the Rochester Home Builders Association for this wonderful partnership.
Make a difference – attend Homearama and purchase some of the incredible items that Ronald McDonald House has for sale or bid on the @home Builders pet mansion. With your help we can make a big difference!
Reality Check
Jul 4th
These have been a few very busy months – I’ve been traveling coast to coast from the worst housing markets to what can be considered the best and the most expensive to the best buys. I’ve been to models, communities,vertical housing, factory built housing and resale homes Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Dallas, San Antonio, Orlando, West Pam Beach, Boca Raton, and now Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. I wasn’t kidding! These are critical times for all of us and if we don’t go out to do the research or find a company that can give us the answers we are looking for we are setting ourselves up to fail.
I’ve been in the homebuilding industry a long time. When I was very young I married into a Building Supply and Lumber company in Buffalo, NY. My mother was a Realtor so since I am no longer very young I’ve seen a lot of trends come and go. I’ve lived and worked through the excessive 80’s, naughty 90’s and the miraculous millennium when we all thought we were invincible and that the line of buyers would never end and we would all live happily ever after.
We all know how that worked out – the rug got literally pulled out from underneath us and those customers who used to be lined up outside our doors now are lined up outside the unemployment office. Companies who told us they were in great shape and were telling us how to invest our money or buy their products suddenly were in Chapter 11 (or worse) and closed their doors. So where do we go from here?
I heard what I thought was good news today – people are starting to save again, at a rate that we haven’t seen for 15 years. Why that is favorable to the building industry is that if they are saving they can have enough money for a down payment and not have to depend on special financing. I thought it was so odd a few years ago when I visited a community in Las Vegas and they told me they were limiting how many people they would sell to that were buying a home as an investment or second home instead of a primary residence. It turns out they were really doing their homeowners a great service – their communities are still thriving instead of being full of foreclosure notices.
Our models need to reflect this new attitude that our buyers are taking. I’m proud to say that my son and daughter-in-law are great examples – they want to buy a home that is actually less than I’m sure they could qualify for because they don’t want the stress of worrying every month where their mortgage payment is going to come from. There are some upgrade that they won’t compromise on – mainly a great kitchen / gathering room with granite countertops. But besides that, when they looked at model homes with me a few weeks ago they almost cringed at the amount of unnecessary upgrades that were shown in many of the homes.
Approachable Design
Jun 16th
The housing market is starting to come back! There’s lots of interest in new homes again and communities are seeing better traffic. Are your models staged to show and sell or are they still targeted to last years buyers?
Something I see more often than not is models that are over merchandised for the buyers that they are trying to attract. Even with budgets as tight as they are right now I think some builders thought that “pulling out all of the stops” would wow the buyers and make their homes stand out. Instead the buyers feel intimidated and think there is no way they could ever afford to have their home look like the model. Do buyers coming to your homes feel comfortable enough to sit down and chat with the sales person in your home or do they hurry through?
Today’s buyers are much more conservative. Gone are the days where we felt secure about our jobs and our investments and people are starting think more about living within their means. Approachable design is about just that – creating a warm, inviting space that makes the buyer fall in love all over again.
Great design doesn’t have to be expensive, and mixing in some fun thrift store or vintage pieces can give your house lots of personality while keeping costs down. The home that we merchandised for @home Builders last year that was done with all gently cherished items that had been donated to The Ronald McDonald House not only kept the builders costs in line, it also helped generate great media exposure and had over 25,000 visitors.
Now may be the time to rethink and remerchandise your existing models to make them more approachable and believeable to the new buyers coming to your doors.
Holiday Builders Gets Viral
Jun 16th
I’ve been struggling with trying to learn all of the new technology that’s out there to get the word out and trying to understand what works and what doesn’t. I love blogging and having the opportunity to share my experiences so I signed up for Twitter but I just didn’t get it. The other day I stumbled across some of Holiday Builders “tweets” and discovered how effective this form of viral marketing can be.
Holiday sends out a tweet when a Realtor® sells one of their homes and identifies them as well as congratulating them for getting one home closer to wining a trip in a promotion they are having. Everyone loves to see their name in print and the tweets are also proof that Holiday is selling a lot of homes!
I feel empowered now and I’m ready to try and conquer the Twitter challenge again. Be sure to check in and let me know how I’m doing.
Greatness is Personal
Jun 15th
Today many of us gathered to say goodbye to a great man – Norman Brinker. Most people know of Norman as the mind who started and refined the trend of casual dining and the founder of Brinker International, but to me Norman will always be a horse lover, polo player and wonderful father first.
In my horse days I had a barn behind Norman’s equestrian center – Willowbend Polo Club. We would ride back and forth between barns and most of my horses came from owners at Willowbend that owned horses that were too much for them and wanted to unload them. Those were wonderful days and how fortunate we all were to be able to watch Norman streak across the polo field doing what he loved. Norman had an uncanny knack of knowing and remembering everyone’s names from the grooms to the owners and he treated everyone equally.
When I had two very young children I decided to work as a waitress at Steak and Ale – a concept that Brinker owned and was fairly new at that time. I helped open the Plano location and Norman spent an amazing amount of time with us learning what worked and what didn’t. He also wanted to make sure that we knew our jobs inside and out and we did a lot of wine tastings to learn about what we were serving. That was my first exposure to wine and it’s an experience that I still enjoy. His passion about the company made us passioniate about what we were doing, and we took our jobs personally and wanted to make Norman proud of us.
Our lives continued to intertwine – my sister was married at Willowbend and went on to work at the corporate offices at Brinker International. Being a “Brinkerhead” she loved being a part of that culture and was always amazed when she would visit a Chili’s and Norman would be there often by himself just enjoying a burger. He always remembered my sister and made her feel special.
What Norman and many great self-made leaders understand is that to succeed it has to be personal. Your own integrity, how you treat people and love of what you do is not a small part of why these people have succeeded and why so many people people love and respect them in return. I wish I had taken a pen and notepad to the service because the wisdom and stories that were shared were incredible. Ross Perot and Mr. Brinker were good friends for many years and I can understand why – they are a lot alike, and both have a great, dry sense of humor that I love. Mr. Perot spoke and he was able to capture what made Norman so special. Even though he had been in a coma and had health issues from a polo incident and had other obstacles, nothing was going to keep Norman down and no matter what he did it was always with an amazing positive attitude and a love for life and everyone around him.
We’ll miss you Norman, but know that you are happily playing polo on the most heavenly fields any of us have ever dreamed of.