KB Home Enhances the Design Experience with Envision

By Kevan Irsch

Since 1957, Los Angeles-based KB Home has been a top U.S. homebuilder, building thousands of homes for families each year.  KB Home has adopted an aggressive design center approach, offering state-of-the-art studio experiences for new home buyers.  This approach coincides with their build-to-order business model.  This model is based around freedom of choice for the buyer, and the design studio is a core part of KB Home’s plan to drive custom-minded buyers.  In August of 2005, KB Home implemented a comprehensive options selection tool, Envision, in four of its markets.  I spoke with Lisa Kalmbach, Senior Vice President of Design Studios for KB Home, and discussed KB Home’s successful experience with Envision at the recent 2007 Summit in Austin, TX.

Electrical Safety: A Wise Upgrade Investment

Sponsored by Square D

One important safety upgrade area is the home’s electrical system.  Until recently, home circuit protection hasn’t fundamentally changed in 100 years.  Potentially life-saving new technologies like arc fault circuit interrupters (AFCIs) are now available to make homes safer.  AFCIs actually prevent fires from occurring by shutting off the electrical circuit before an actual fire results.  The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that AFCIs could prevent more than 50 percent of electrical fires.

Hot Design Trends: Continuing Into 2008 and Beyond

By Jane Meagher

As 2007 comes to a close, here are what we see as hot design trends that  will continue into 2008 and beyond…they’ve probably already hit your design studio, but look for them to make a broader and deeper impact into your product offerings in 2008.

The Real World
While homebuyers are buying a brand new home, they don’t want it to look mass-produced.  Many of today’s hottest selling design studio products represent the authentic, vintage, rustic and timeless look of weathered family heirlooms and old world charm.  Wide planks and hand-scraped hardwoods, such as Shaw’s Artisan’s Touch or Artisan’s Craft, continue to trend up as buyers yearn for an authentic timeworn look representative of fond memories, warmth, coziness, and uniqueness.  In cabinetry, glazed cabinets and distressed finishes, such as Yorktowne’s Character Finish Packages, continue to increase in popularity. These products often represent the upper end of the product lines for both cabinets and flooring.  Who would have thought we would one day pay significantly more for someone at a factory to purposefully and methodically rub off part of a newly-applied finish, create worm holes or spatter marks, or even scrape sharp metal objects across a brand new hardwood floor?  The magnificent Ann Sacks stone floor I’m putting into my new kitchen is terra cotta, reclaimed from ceiling materials found in 19th century stables in France!  Authentic materials provide an opportunity for highly individualized expression.

Have You Gone Granite?

by Kevan Irsch

The kitchen is the new living room.  Let’s face it - as homeowners become busier than ever, families are spending less time relaxing next to the fireplace.  As a result, the kitchen has become the new family gathering area, and more buyers are seeing additional value in substantial option investments in the kitchen.  Granite countertops are one of most important features a builder can offer consumers, and can even be the selling point of a home.  Via Bertolini has become a leading provider of granite fabrication and installation by placing focus on the customer, pursuing a competitive pricing strategy, and delivering consistency in color and quality.  The company has mastered the supply chain from the quarry in Brazil to home installation, making the granite purchasing process simple. 

Executive Perspectives

Welcome to the second issue of Insight Inbox, the industry's newsletter!  This month, we turn our sights to 'Design Centers'.  This is very timely, as many of you were part of the innovative sparks at Summit 07 this past month.  The group that assembled here in Austin managed to look past the industry challenges and hone in on the immediate opportunities we have to increase margin and delight our buyers by taking more of a 'retail science' approach to our businesses.

Transforming Design Centers into Profit Centers

by Kay Green

Savvy builders know that options and upgrades can translate into big profits in the homebuilding industry.  Your design centers (and model homes) can make or break your sales.  The presentation of your options and upgrades is equally important to the products you choose to offer.  So…to help you maximize your profits, here are a few of the basics of “design center design.”

Best of Breed Systems and Integrations

by Alpana Arora

The Consortium CIO’s have done it again!  New Home Technologies (NHT) has partnered with leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) companies in the space to provide a best-in-class integration experience.  Three leading CRM companies - Pivotal, Sales Simplicity, and G1440 - have built “out-of-the-box” integrations with Envision, the leading online options management solution conceived, developed and deployed by the industry.  Constellation is also in the planning phases of their integration process, so we hope to announce their integration shortly.    

In the Media

Read, browse, and learn from articles, blog posts, book reviews, video, and other relevant homebuilding news with In the Media.  Whether these links include home sales advice, purchasing trends, or big-picture industry analysis, we know the content will be both informative and useful.

Video

Tim Costello discussed how homebuilders need to leverage the Internet to connect with homebuyers at the 2007 Summit.  By moving the home buying process online, builders can provide buyers with the tools they want.

Gary Hoover, founder of Bookstop and Hoover's, Inc., shared the top 8 factors that separate a successful enterprise from an unsuccessful enterprise in his keynote address at Summit.  Great success comes from focusing our attention on history rather than the future, Hoover says.  Hoover also gave an insightful lecture on retail science and how builders can integrate the retail experience into their sales process.

Blog posts

Web 2.0: What Are They Talking About?

NAR Blasts DOJ Real Estate Web Site

Industry Pulse

Welcome to Industry Pulse.  Using data supplied by New Home Source web analytics, we have calculated the 10 biggest gaining and dropping U.S. new home markets for online searches by visitor traffic for October over September.  Stay up-to-date on the state of the market with Industry Pulse.

New Home Source is the web's leading online new home marketplace.  Consumers use simple search tools to find the homes and communities that suit them best and they can download instant brochures on all their favorites.  Builders market their homes and communities using descriptions, photos, maps, plans and more and receive highly qualified leads. 

Title Tags - The Most Important On-Page Attribute for SEO

When optimizing a page or website for search engine placement a marketer needs to consider both on-page and off-page attributes.  When search engine optimization first started several years ago, the major focus was on on-page attributes such as Title Tags, Meta Keywords, Meta Descriptions, Keyword Density and Header Titles.  Due to the abuse of most of these practices, namingly keyword stuffing, it has become very difficult to acquire high rankings for competitive words based on on-page attributes alone.  In fact, most would argue that meta keywords have very little if any effect on a pages ranking at all anymore. 

Within the last year, 25 of the nations top SEOs were interviewed in an attempt to better understand what the experts believe to be the most important aspect of search engine optimization.  Their opinions or weightings varied amongst most attributes but an overwhelmingly majority rated the proper use of Title Tags as the most important on-page attribute for search engine placement.  This isn't about over stuffing keywords into the page title but rather making sure that every page has a unique title that defines the page as well as pursuades users to click on them from the search engine results page.  You want to keep the Title Tags short, sweet, and to the point as well as include those ever important search query terms.  For an example of what I'm talking about please visit the "Washington DC New Homes" market page and examine how we've structured the Title Tags for NewHomeSource.com.

Check back later to learn about Off-Page Attributes or more commonly known as In-Bound Links.

Advertise with Insight Inbox

Decision-makers have less time every day and more difficult to reach.  Suppliers and manufacturers all compete for a builder's time and attention.  Insight Inbox delivers:

• Instant credibility from the industry consortium, BHI
• Impactful, highly targeted advertising to reach the builders that matter
• Comprehensive tracking of ad impressions, page views, and subscriber behavior

Insight Inbox delivers maximum return on your investment.  To learn more about this exciting opportunity, please contact:
Brian Kordansky
(512) 651-8886
BKordansky@builderhomesite.com

BHI Digital Experience: Create Once, Use Everywhere

Did you know that BHI can create 3-D renderings animations and videos at a fraction of the cost of traditional media agencies? The BHI Digital Experience provides a single source for all digital assets including:

• Floor plans (Static / Colored / Interactive)
• 3D Architectural Renderings (in a wide variety of styles and presentation options)
  Elevation Options Visualizer
• Community plat maps
• Virtual fly overs/throughs (community animation)
• Interior renderings
• Virtual tours
• Video on Demand

To speak with a Digital Media Consultant, fill out a contact form now.

Web 2.0: What Are They Talking About?

By now you're probably heard the phrase "Web 2.0". What exactly is Web 2.0 and what does it mean for your web presence?

Here’s how I would characterize Web 2.0 in a  nutshell, based on what has happened in the marketplace, and what I have read and heard at various websites and industry conferences. I’ll also reference the O’Reilly definition, since O’Reilly coined the phrase in an attempt to sell more books.

Participatory Web and User Contributions
Applications that are centered around user interactions and get better the more they are used:

• Ratings and Reviews, YouTube, eBay Marketplace, Flickr Photo Sharing

Folksonomy vs. Taxonomy

• Users define how data is categorized. “Tagging”

Social Objects

The ability for users to share something about themselves with other users

• My Favorites
• Here’s what I’m doing right now

Blogging and RSS
The Live Web with RSS: Users are notified in real time, via a push, that information they’re interested in has been updated. You no longer have to surf websites for content

• Blogs: A fast and easy way to publish highly specific and targeted content that is shared and referenced by other bloggers via links.
• The high rate of publishing and linking from blogs gives them a disproportionate in shaping search results.
• Blogging creates chatter and communities

Rich User Experiences
Techniques like AJAX enable highly interactive experiences that allow the user to control and “play” with the website.

• Maps
• Drag and Drop in web mail
• Photo manipulation in Flickr

This video is very enlightening. Take a look.