 Home Buyers
Tips Archive
The Model Trap
and Other Sales Sins of Builders
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 market 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 ('pre qualified') 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. Another
good source if you have access to the web: check out Hoover's Online at http://www.hoovers.com. This site
includes profiles of 8500 companies, including their latest SEC filings and reports from
analysts.
- 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 Tip was excerpted from:
Your New House, by Alan & Denise Fields, Windsor Press, 1996
ISBN# 0-9626556-8-6
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