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Buyer Tips
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Here's an interesting trivia question: What's the number one reason
buyers of new homes cite for not recommending their builder?
If you said the quality of the home, guess again. Sixty-eight percent
of new buyers said the humiliating sales process of their builder
soured them on the whole experience, according to a Minnesota
marketing research firm. And who can blame them? Whether you're in
Maine or Oregon, walk into any new home community and the sales pitch
is frighteningly similar. Even Builder Magazine, the official
mouthpiece of the National Association of Home Builders, recognized
this problem in a recent article and described the typical sales
process like this:
"The hostess or sales associate greets the customer at the sales
office door. Then, like it or not, the prospects are led to the topo
table (the office's centerpiece) to get a bird's-eye view of the
community, hear a spiel on the project's benefits and (to instill the
first twinges of urgency) see all the little red "sold"
dots. Next, the buyers are delicately grilled ('prequalified') about
their housing needs and pocket depth, then steered to the wall-mounted
floor plan the sales staffer judges they'd like best. Then the
prospects are released (or if it's a slow day, accompanied) to the
models."
"Back from the models (assuming they didn't climb over the model
trap's fence), the prospects are intercepted, steered to the
wall-mounted 'builders' story for another canned spiel, then directed
(or accompanied) to a lot. Finally, the sales associate eases the
prospects into a cramped closing room to 'work up some numbers'- and
to extract a 'be-back' promise or contract." Sound familiar? The
only thing missing is a soundtrack blaring out Janet Jackson's
"Control." (I want to be the one... in control!) That's what
it's all about, after all-manipulating you both physically (why do you
think the models with the fence attached is called a "model
trap"?) and psychologically. Builders are control freaks, who
think the only way to weed out tire-kickers is to treat all buyers
like a side of beef that's waiting to be processed.
There are some ways you can take control of the sales process as a
buyer. Here are some tips:
•Do your homework before you step into a model. Don't rely on the
canned "builder's story." Instead research the builder at
the local library- all public builders will leave a trail of newspaper
articles, both good and bad.
•Ask for the price lists and brochures up-front. Instead of being
led by the nose through the builder's model, insist on seeing these
documents first. That way you can tell if you're truly interested or
merely wasting both your and the builder's time.
•Shop around. Not all builders are blind to this problem- some
actually have tried to make the sales process easier to swallow. For
example, at willow lake in North Aurora, IL, United Development has
life-sized plans on waterproof tarps- buyers can walk through the
plans to get an idea of different layouts or to merely figure out how
large that closet really is. Other builders are making their models
more interactive, with freestanding displays of plumbing, windows, and
other details. By revealing what's going on behind the walls, you can
get a better read on the builder's quality.
This Homebuyers Tip was excerpted from:
Your New House,by Alan & Denise Fields,Windsor Press, 1996
ISBN# 0962655686
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