virtual tours

Unlocking Success in the Competitive Home Sales Market: How Interactive Tools and Incentives Make New Builds a Smart Choice

October 1, 2024
By Tabitha Warren

Architect checking house floor plan for new build on tablet device — _{Architect checking new build floor plan on tablet courtesy of Envato Elements}

For the past few years, potential homeowners have been facing a challenging scenario – soaring mortgage rates that threaten to make their dream of owning a home harder and harder to reach. The low supply of existing inventory due to families not moving from their low-interest-rate homes is making the situation even worse. The financial waves of the housing market have left many potential buyers contemplating their options. Is it still feasible to dive into the deep waters of mortgage loans when the rates are riding too high? Or should they seek the calmer shores and consider a different route altogether?

In this blog, we’ll explore why the alternative path that more and more prospective homeowners are setting their sights on, purchasing a new build home, might be a better option. We’ll also talk about some of the most alluring incentives that home builders can leverage to take advantage of this market. Finally, we’ll talk about the need for home builders to have an effective website with engaging digital tools to set themselves apart from their competitors.

New builds come with some advantages to existing properties. Among these advantages might be the ability to customize the home, energy efficiency, warranty coverage for the initial year of ownership, and lower immediate maintenance costs. Builders that can market these advantages as cost saving advantages might just win prospective buyers from the resale market. What home buyer doesn’t want to save on every aspect possible of homeownership?

So, what home builder incentives are the most attractive to new home buyers? As mortgage loan interest rates soar, there are two stand out incentives. First, closing cost assistance can reduce the financial burden of a new home buyer at the time of closing. This makes homeownership much more attainable to buyers at these heightened rates. The second is interest rate buydowns! Some builders are offering to buy down the buyers’ mortgage rate to get the prospective buyer to a more manageable monthly mortgage payment. From this writer’s logic, this frees the buyer to only need finances for one of the two things themselves. They either need enough money for a down payment or an interest rate buy down if they want a nice low payment for the term of their dream home.

Housing market affordability is so strained that this Fortune 500 homebuilder is offering a fixed 4.25% mortgage rate in some communities
Check out this article from Forbes!

Builders have a myriad of other incentives aside from these two. They can offer base price discounts on specific homes. This usually happens with the first few homes in a new development. They can offer free or discounted upgrades, customizations, or appliance packages. They can also offer to pay HOA fees for the first year. These are just a few of the incentives available that can make new construction more financially attractive than purchasing an existing home.

Never Underestimate the Value of a Good First Impression.”

You’re with me this far. You’re a builder. You offer some of these incentives, but you want to know how to set yourself apart from other builders when marketing to potential homebuyers. Interactive tools may be key in the real estate market. These tools offer a more engaging and informative experience to potential buyers, making it easier for them to visualize themselves in a potential new home. It can also make sure they clearly understand what the properties have to offer.

Don’t believe us? Here’s some statistical proof provided by the Content Marketing Institute:

88% of marketers say interactive content differentiates them from competitors giving them a significant advantage in a crowded market.
93% of marketers agree that interactive content is effective in educating buyers as compared to 70% for static content.
Interactive content attracts 2x the engagement of similar static content.

Those numbers are hard to refute, and they are just some highlights. If you want more information, head over to the Content Marketing Institute’s website to read more of their studies.

Some of the best interactive tools come in a few different categories: visualization, personalization, and lead generation, to name a few. When it comes to visualization, the most useful tools for new home buyers tend to be interactive floor plans, virtual tours, and real-time online booking and scheduling. Interactive floor plans (IFPS) allow buyers to customize layouts and explore different design options. Buyers can visualize a space and personalize it to their needs. This can be a powerful selling point for new construction homes where there are often many customization options.

_{Interactive Floor Plans Top New Buyers’ Useful Tools Lists}

Virtual tours or 3D tours allow a homeowner to experience a home, whether it is real or 3D rendered, from the comfort of their own home. Builders can showcase the home in detail. This is incredibly important in times when physical access may be limited or just plain inconvenient.

Further, websites can integrate features that allow buyers to schedule appointments, book showings, or attend virtual open houses. This is a convenience for both the buyer and the home builder!

Once the potential buyer is interested in a builder, the best interactive tools need to be personalized; this can be achieved with real-time updates on available homes, pricing, and promotions. After all, everything else on the builder’s site hooked this potential home buyer; the builder will want to keep them interested! A great addition after purchase might be online sales tools. Many websites allow buyers to complete the purchase process online, including signing contracts and making payments.

Finally, lead generation might be the final piece of the interactive tool puzzle. Home builders can use website analytics to gain insights into user behavior. A data-driven approach can help them refine their marketing strategies and help them understand what features are most appealing to buyers. They might use this information to improve their sales tactics. Moreover, valuable data about user engagement and preferences can be provided to builders from their interactive tools. When potential buyers engage with these tools, builders can collect information and follow up with targeted marketing and sales efforts specific to individual buyers.

Modern websites can capture leads and integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Sales teams can use this information to effectively nurture leads and follow-up. The best way to turn a potential buyer into a homeowner is with timely and personalized information. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media integration might be the bow on the package. A well-optimized website can rank higher in search and make it easier for potential buyers to find and explore a builder’s properties. SEO strategies can drive organic traffic to the builder’s site. With the addition of well-thought-out social media integrations, builders can leverage social networks for marketing and referrals.

To sum it up, modern website assets empower homebuilders to provide a superior online experience, engage potential buyers effectively, and leverage data to optimize their sales strategies. By staying up-to-date with the latest web technologies and user experience trends, homebuilders can gain a competitive edge in this competitive home sales market. There is definitely room for new home sales to outpace resale with the proper online strategies!

If all of this sounds a little mind blowing to you, a great place to learn about all of these digital tools, and the corresponding analytics would be from the experts at The Home Builders Digital Marketing Summit, and some of the amazing companies sponsoring and hosting the event.

Tabitha Warren was an Income Tax Accountant for 15+ years. In the first months of the pandemic, she took a chance and re-careered to freelance in Marketing. She currently, and very happily, works with video and photo editing, social media marketing, and now blog writing.

The Importance of a Digital Marketing Ecosystem: A Lesson from Tesla

March 28, 2025
By Jim Sorgatz

When you think of leaders in the electrical vehicle movement, I believe even the Elon haters would have to give props to Tesla. They have moved into a position of power that is rare. One of the chief reasons for this is their self-contained ecosystem. From batteries to auto parts to charging stations and software, Tesla is in control. There is little that is outsourced.

This streamlined approach makes them significantly more profitable than other auto manufacturers. They also have one of the most powerful computer systems in the world, enabling drivers to control everything from a sleek touchscreen. Tesla also gathers data from their vehicles. Paired with AI, the data from every mile driven gives them the lead in autonomous driving. No one knows when robo taxis will make their grand entrance, but the probability of it happening in my lifetime is exciting!

*_{Tesla Touchscreen Controls Adobe Stock}*

The Ecosystem

What does all this have to do with homebuilder sales and marketing, you ask? It all comes down to the ecosystem. While some builders use individual vendors for renderings, interactive floor plans, print materials, etc., savvy builders understand the benefits of working with a full-service provider like Outhouse. In addition to digital marketing assets like interactive floor plans (IFPs), interactive site plans (ISPs), renderings, virtual tours, visualizers, animations, and digital kiosks, we also have an in-house print and signage shop and a full-service computer-aided design (CAD) department. Clients who use all our services benefit from significant time and cost savings. When you make changes in CAD, those edits carry across our entire ecosystem.

Our “Touchscreen” – the Interactive Control Center

Like Tesla, Outhouse now has a slick “touchscreen,” our new Interactive Control Center. With the launch of this intuitive administrative back end for our interactive platform, we are setting the stage for a new future in interactive control. A few of the features include:

A new look with upgraded graphics for ease of use and improved navigation
A clean template with easy-to-see project permissions
Choice between light and dark themes, similar to our IFPs
The ability to personalize by setting your home page – perhaps a specific community or your interactive floor plan list
No more pagination. The plan list is fluid. While not a huge issue for builders with only a few IFPs, builders with dozens will appreciate this time-saver
Seamless movement between IFPs and ISPs in the same community. No more toggling between lists of IFPs and ISPs
Simplified self-serve reports and the ability to export data in Excel, CSV, JSON, and XML
A search box and filters to make it easy to find what you are looking for.

Also coming soon to the Control Center are a dashboard, and everyone’s favorite – widgets. Everything is designed to simplify the management of your interactive tools and data collection from potential clients.

*_{Tesla’s Super Chargers in a line Adobe Stock}*

Integration

Integration makes life easier. Ask the owners of EVs manufactured by companies other than Tesla. There’s a reason the most prominent auto manufacturers are signing contracts to access Tesla’s Supercharger network. Constructed in secret, Tesla unveiled their first six Supercharger stations in 2012. From there, they have continued building a Supercharger network nationwide. They understood the need for a strong network of Superchargers for EVs to compete with gas-fueled vehicles. Tesla also fixes and improves their cars simply by issuing a software update. Their ecosystem is fully integrated, from construction to batteries to software to charging stations.

In recent years, Outhouse has enhanced our interactive products to achieve full integration with each other. Starting with our interactive site plan, your home buyers can click on a lot to reveal renderings of the available homes. Click on a rendering, and it opens an interactive floor plan. While engaging with the IFP, home buyers can also view virtual tours and select colors and finishes with interior and exterior visualizers. All of our interactive tools can be neatly packaged into an interactive kiosk for potential homebuyers to peruse while at your sales center.

Before you start your next community, consider how your company might benefit from implementing a complete interactive ecosystem rather than just a few pieces and parts. Today’s home buyers are shopping online; your website should make it easy for them to decide your homes and communities are the right fit for their families. As the EV market grows, you may also want to consider where to place a Supercharger!

Print Marketing Sells New Homes

October 1, 2024
By Jim Sorgatz

People often ask us why a print company specializing in print for home builders is necessary. Heck, today, builders sometimes ask us if print marketing is still a valuable sales tool! The answer to both questions is a resounding “Yes!” We explain why in this post.

The Role of Print in New Home Sales

In a recent episode of the Digital Velocity P odcast, co-hosts Erik Martinez of Blue Tangerine and Tim Curtis of CohereOne talk with Alex Kupski and Jake Hoffman, co-hosts of the Millennials in Print Podcast, about the Power of Print in the Digital Age. They conclude, “The more channels you’re present on and the more channels you’re marketing to people on, ultimately, the more effective you’re going to be. Print, just like social, just like email, just like your website, just like a commercial on TV, is a channel for you to market on. It’s another arrow in the quiver. It’s another way to reach people you might not have before.”

Print marketing works best when paired with digital marketing. Digital marketing is often the most effective way to draw people in. With interactive site plans, interactive floor plans, renderings, virtual tours, visualizers, and Matterport tours, your website is arguably a home builder’s most potent marketing tool. But it is only effective for a home buyer’s few precious moments on your website. Print collateral, on the other hand, has a much longer life span. Brochures and floorplan/elevation minis often sit on a potential buyer’s countertop or table for weeks or months, a lasting reminder of your homes and communities. Not every prospect immediately purchases a home, so print is a great way to keep them focused on yours.

David Weekley Homes brochure with cactus front cover, and homes on the back

Data shows that print used in tandem with digital marketing is one of the most effective sales strategies as the two mediums strengthen and reinforce each other. A study by InfoTrends found that 66% of direct mail is opened, and 56% of consumers who respond to direct mail go online or visit a physical store. A recent article in SFGate offers some great tips to sync your print and digital marketing efforts:

Place QR codes on print materials.

Provide digital opt-ins for direct mail.

Include social media reviews and comments on print materials.

Include hashtags and calls to action on print materials.

Although digital and print marketing take different forms, They work together to engage customers and keep your brand at the top of their minds.

Why Use a Builder-Specific Printing Company?

The challenge builders face that is unique to our industry is the weekly sales cycle. From week to week, home prices may change, lot availability changes, and options may vary. The typical strip-mall printer is not equipped to automate this process. Outhouse built their business to serve a single industry – HOME BUILDING. We do all work in-house, from CAD for your construction documents to print materials for your sales centers. This allows all teams, including architectural, rendering, graphics, interactive, and print, to work in tandem. By doing so, we create accurate, up-to-date print materials that are consistent and coordinated with your digital marketing assets. Utilizing the latest technologies, we print and deliver materials on time every week, on the builder’s schedule. Challenge solved – you send us your edits, and we coordinate these changes across all platforms.

Professional Artwork Creation: Outhouse provides clients with the considerable advantage of having drafting and rendering services on-site, allowing coordination with the development of their artwork for all printed materials. This coordination offers clients superior accuracy, faster turnaround times, and lower overall costs.

Coordinated File Management: Another advantage is the ease of managing and coordinating all created artwork with professional digital file and asset management. All artwork is kept up-to-date, consistent, and coordinated between city design reviews, printed sales materials, large format displays, and interactive web products and services.

Superior Print Quality: Superior brand standard quality and consistency every time on every product is only possible with the coordination, color calibration, and production of all graphics, printing, and display under one roof. Unlike a mass-market printer like Vista Print, Outhouse is not a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) printer. We believe that good enough is never good enough, and we have the magnifying glasses to prove it! On rare occasions when colors are incorrect or print quality is not up to snuff the first time off the press, we recalibrate and rerun the job.

Builder-Specific Delivery: Unlike many industries, home building has a weekly sales cycle, and having your print delivered on time is critical. Outhouse understands this. We meet your deadlines your way on your weekly sales cycle.

Woodside Homes brochure with three homes

The bottom line is print marketing still plays an integral role in new home marketing and sales. There’s a reason the Outhouse Interactive Floor Plan has a save button. It allows prospective homebuyers to save their customized floor plans and print them out for further review.

What about younger generations? Retail Focus Magazine tells us that print is 30% more memorable than digital. This applies to all age groups. You need look no further than nightclubs which hand out leaflets advertising upcoming events, and university welcome packs to know that print still appeals to young people. The magazine also notes the best campaigns are when print and digital work alongside each other instead of trying to compete. A younger audience may be digitally savvy, but they still appreciate a well-thought-out hard copy campaign.

Although any printer can give you a halfway decent brochure, only a company like Outhouse coordinates your CAD, rendering, and interactive projects with your print materials and sales office displays. Even if our print pricing is a bit higher, you will save significantly more overall through efficiencies in coordination.

Woodside Homes floor plan — *When you update a plan, Outhouse coordinates the changes across CAD, print, and all digital marketing assets.*

New Home Sales Centers Take Center Stage

October 1, 2024
By Jim Sorgatz

Even Smaller Builders Can Have a Top-Notch Sales Office

With the slowdown in residential sales, home builders across the nation are investing in new home sales centers, or model home centers, to showcase their houses and communities. Sales centers are a great vehicle to draw homebuyers in and highlight all your homes offer. Large public builders may opt for elaborate buildouts with cabinets, multiple touch screens, and monitors, especially in larger communities. On the other hand, many small or mid-size builders may ask what it takes to install a sales center. With some creativity and an eye for design, even the smallest production builders can set up an effective sales center in the garage of a model home.

Come on in and explore. Simple furnishings, large framed panels, a touchscreen display, and an acrylic logo create an inviting, sophisticated room for the K. Hovnanian Looks sales center.

A great place to start is with signage experts like Outhouse. With experience in top-of-the-line installations for some of the most prominent builders and scaled-down designs for smaller companies, we can offer suggestions and advice on model home centers to fit any budget. Large framed panels that tell a story create emotional connections and are cost-effective. A large acrylic logo on the wall and smaller directional signs and nameplates give the room a polished look. A wrap covering an entire wall packs a punch and creates a memorable wow factor.

Large format print. A wrap with the image of motorcycle racers covering two walls in a garage. — *An inspirational wall wrap in a private garage. Imagine one like this in your sales center!*

The key to a thriving sales center is excellent storytelling and uniformity of the design elements. With this goal in mind, builders sometimes combine their sales center with a design center bringing in additional warmth and visual appeal.

A wall wrap with the image of a boy capturing a firefly in a jar. An acrylic panel with text overlays a portion of the wrap. — *Starlight Homes sales centers may have a new look these days, but this is still one of our favorite iterations. Storytelling at its finest.*

In today’s digital age, an interactive kiosk is a must. Essentially a mini-website, interactive kiosks integrate your digital marketing tools in a single app for easy use onsite at the sales center. Responsive, device-agnostic kiosks like those provided by Outhouse integrate point-of-interest maps, interactive site plans, interactive floor plans, interior and exterior visualizers, virtual tours, and animations for a seamless home-buying experience. They engage homebuyers and can be installed on any device. Even something as small as a tablet becomes a powerful sales tool. Imagine buyers customizing their home through an interactive floor plan while touring your models.

The home page of an interactive kiosk produced by Outhouse. Buttons along the side link to a Welcome page, Point of Interest map, interactive site plan, and interactive floor plans. — The Outhouse Interactive Kiosk with links to a welcome page, point of interest map, interactive site plan, and interactive floor plans. Buttons can be customized to include virtual tours, interior and exterior visualizers, or whatever else you’d like.

With a more significant budget, consider installing large touchscreen monitors to elevate the impact. Visitors to your sales center will feel like they are in a sci-fi movie as they whiz around maps, floor and site plans, house renderings, virtual tours, and more, all on a grand scale. Hang a monitor on the wall or install it in a custom cabinet or table for a more sophisticated look. Creative License International and the Temeka Group are a couple of companies that build custom furniture for sales and design centers.

Cachet Homes Arizona sales center. The complete package in a compact space. Wall mounted acrylic panels, touchscreen monitors featuring an interactive kiosk, and print collateral engage the senses.

The final element of a thriving sales center is print marketing. Although some digital marketing agencies may lead you to believe that print is no longer a viable marketing tool, statistics show otherwise:

Infographic with images representing print marketing statistics which are listed below the graphic.

95% of people under 25 years old read magazines (Top Media Advertising).
82% of consumers trust print ads the most when making a purchase decision (Burstein).
Combining print and digital ads makes online campaigns 400% more effective (Top Media Advertising).
Print drives higher levels of brand recall vs. digital (77% vs. 46%) (Newsworks).

Think about it. We go to trade shows and expos like the International Builders Show, Pacific Coast Builders Conference, Southwest Builders Show, Southeast Building Conference, and more for human connection. We meet with business associates, physically test new products, and pick up many samples, catalogs, and marketing brochures along the way. When we get home, we review those brochures in detail as part of our decision-making process. Print still plays an integral role in marketing.

A print brochure for Capital West Homes in Arizona featuring a cover with photos of a family, community landscape, and house renderings and floor plans inside. — *Print brochure with house renderings and floorplans for Capital West Homes in Arizona. The perfect takeaway for model home center visitors.*

Outhouse installs sales centers/model home centers and provides print marketing for home builders across the nation. If you’re ready to install your sales center and would like a quote on signage, interactive kiosks, touchscreen monitors, and print collateral, contact us at info@outhouse.net. If you are unsure where to start, call the Outhouse experts at (602) 371-4394. We are here to help and can guide you in the right direction based on your design requirements and budget.

Rules of Engagement

October 1, 2024
By Jim Sorgatz

Penguins surrounding expedition gear sitting a rock.

In the military, rules of engagement are a directive specifying the circumstances and limitations under which forces will engage in combat with the enemy.

In Antarctica, the rule of engagement is – bring on the penguins!

Hundreds of penguins walking along a beach. Snow covered ice shelf and mountain in the background.

I recently had the good fortune of taking an expedition to the great white continent. Superlatives are not unwarranted. The icebergs are astounding. The clouds are incredible, unlike anywhere else I have ever been. They feel so close you can touch them. The landscape is otherworldly. And the penguins are utterly captivating and engaging. The Antarctic Treaty dictates that visitors maintain a distance of 15 metres from the penguins, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come to check you out! Penguins are as curious about us as we are about them.

Leopard seal lazily resting on black sand.

Not only are penguins the stars of the show for adventurers like me, they also draw crowds of other animals by sea to Antarctica. Technically, it all starts with the krill, but penguins are a favorite food of leopard seals, fur seals, sea lions, and sharks. And all are prey to killer whales. Watching the circle of life play out in real-time has its sad moments, but it is also one of the most fascinating spectacles on earth. With landings in both Antarctica and the Falkland Islands, I saw more penguins than I could count. Is it possible to get tired of them? For countless other explorers and me, the answer is an emphatic NO! They are SO engaging!

Rules of engagement apply to home builders as well. To sell homes, you need to engage home buyers. Traditionally, this has been accomplished with model home tours and glossy brochures. Although those still play an essential role in new home sales, today, home builder websites are the stars of the show. What used to be seen as a sales mechanism for younger buyers is now the primary marketing vehicle for home builders to reach all generations. This means engaging tools like interactive floor plans and site maps, visualizers, virtual tours, Matterport tours, and interactive sales kiosks are no longer options. In the home building industry, they are a necessity.

Penguin with baby chicks sitting in their pebble nest.

As potential home buyers become more web-savvy, they seek a more sophisticated online experience. This is where connected, interactive platforms, like the Virtual Interactive Platform (VIP) by Outhouse, come into play. Beginning with an interactive site map, potential buyers can click on lots to view interactive floor plans, renderings, animations, virtual tours, visualizers, and more. The beauty is entire platform is built upon a single site map.

Penguins relaxing on a white sand beach. Tall grass in the foreground.

Do not underestimate the power of virtual tours and visualizers. As builders begin moving towards a “buy now” option online, these interactive tools contribute significantly to your website’s ability to engage homebuyers and sell new homes. User-controlled virtual tours allow families to tour your homes from anywhere in the world. Interior and exterior visualizers encourage potential buyers to customize homes, increasing their vested interest.

In addition to incorporating interactive tools on your website, boosting engagement with these tools should also be part of the conversation. There are several best practices to accomplish this. The 2-3 click rule, for example, is the maximum number of clicks to get to your interactive floor plans. Other guidelines relate to how your interactive floor plans and site maps open (iFrames vs. responsive opens). Some of these apply specifically to one tool or another. The team here at Outhouse, or one of our website development partners like Blue Tangerine, Bokka Group, Adlanta Creative, Kovach Marketing, 616 Marketing, Power Marketing, Group Two, or Meredith Communications, are happy to review these with you.

A group of 9 King Penguins.You can see their orange necks.

The goal is to draw homebuyers in and keep them engaged on your website. Like the penguins in Antarctica, interactive tools are the star of the show on home builder websites. Implemented correctly, they keep buyers coming back and, ultimately, increase your conversion rate.