Design Centers

  • Fischer Homes Takes on Indianapolis

    Builder plans to open a design center for this market, where it wants to sell at least 150 homes in its first year.

     
  • Illinois Builder and Remodeler Form Marriage of Convenience

    A showroom in downtown Naperville will be focal feature of merger between Charleston Development Group and Casa Bella Design Kitchen and Bath Remodelers.

     
  • New Web-Based Design Studio Offers Hope for Poorly Designed Kitchens

    Service offers benefits to builders as well as consumers.

     
  • One Supplier Offers Helping Hand to Troubled Builders

    Creative Touch Interiors, despite being embroiled in at least two builder bankruptcies, forges closer ties with its clients.

     
  • Home Depot Reports A Fourth-Quarter Loss

    But company officers say results were "distorted" by charges and writedowns, as well as one fewer reporting week.

     
  • The Builder Roundtable: Chicago Segment 2

    In this segment, expert panelists cover current sales and marketing challenges, business plan predictions for 2008, and long-term prospects for the industry.

     
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    The Nationals: Special Spaces

    Before buyers spend years in a home, they'll spend critical hours in a welcome center, a sales center, or a design center. A disconnect at any one of these points can be the difference between a customer who is happy to refer friends and family and one who just wants to get the whole thing over with so they can move into their house. That's why these facilities are so important, and why The Nationals recognizes excellence in them.

     
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    Instant Entertainment

    A big builder and an electronics retailer form an agreement to market audio/video systems.

     
  • See It Now

    For years, home builders have been looking for a reliable software tool that would let home buyers view home plans and models and select options in 3-D and then integrate with a builder's back-office system.

     
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    Retail Intervention

    The Estridge Home Experience offers the public the opportunity to see the latest in home décor trends, learn about Estridge communities, observe the options and upgrades process, and buy something wonderful for their home

     
  • CSI: Products: Packaged Deal

    Smart builders these days are offering prepackaged options that are easier for buyers to select and easier for staff to manage.

     
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    Veridian Homes, Madison, Wis.

    YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH THE NUMBERS. SINCE VERIDIAN Homes in Madison, Wis., opened its new design center in November 2003, the sale of upgrades has increased by 30 percent. Not only that, but the builder attributes 12.7 percent of all new traffic and nearly 10 percent of its closings to first contacts made in the design center.

     
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    Reuse Replica

    JOKE IF YOU WANT ABOUT NEW JERSEY, BUT WHEN IT COMES to selling high-density waterfront housing, few can match the Landings at Harborside in Perth Amboy. The first phase of 78 homes of the project's 2,100-unit master plan sold out in 10 days, thanks largely to an innovative sales and design center created from a forsaken naval training center on site.

     
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    Camp Experience

    The Welcome Center for Wilderness Lake Preserve in Land O' Lakes, Fla., looks and feels different from the typical Gulf Coast sales center.

     
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    Keep Your Options Open

    Smaller companies are finding creative ways to give customers the personalization they crave, while minimizing the organizational burdens that can drain staff and siphon profits.

     
  • BUILDER Tech Briefs: March 2004

    - SpeakerCraft's Proficient Audio Systems now features two new programs. - M&S Systems markets intercom to residential builders. - Xplore Technologies Corp. releases affordable heavy-duty Tablet PC for builders.

     
  • Hot Stuff: tecHOMExpo(TM) Educational Sessions

    By BUILDER Magazine Staff. A discussion and demonstration on how builder design centers and warranty departments can leverage the tools of technology and the internet to create 1. This session will explore how progressive builders are turning internet leads into sales, the profile of a successful online sales counselor, what online sales counselors do to get sales results, and how to put a program into action at your company.

     
  • Design Training

    Design Center Solutions is offering a Web-based training program geared to help design consultants sell more upgrades and improve customer satisfaction.

     
  • Buy Design

    "We were the first in our market to have a design center, but a lot of other builders are now offering them," says Kara Opanowicz, Hovnanian Enterprises' Home Design Gallery director. But the first company in the United States to offer a design center was probably Rayco Homes in San Antonio, says Debra Hotaling, spokesperson for Los Angeles-based KB Home.

     
  • Urban Outfitters

    From the 2003 National Sales and Marketing Awards: Schumacher Homes may have built the design center of all design centers. Fifty percent of Serrano's buyers come from the Bay area, and when the ad ran, traffic reached a total of 12,000.