Design Centers

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    Georgia Builder Shops for Customers at a Shopping Center

    Grayhawk Homes moves its offices and sales center to a prominent corner in Columbus, Ga.

     
  • Margin Maker Fulton Homes extensive design center boosts profits by selling extras.

    Well-Stocked Design Center Helps Sales

    Fulton Homes' design center has helped boost margins and sales despite the Phoenix-area economy.

     
  • Fulton Homes Sells Houses Like Trousers, to Great Effect

    Using retail techniques, the Arizona builder is making money with a trade-run design center.

     
  • Sustainable Kitchen

    Burlingame, Calif.

     
  • 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.

     
  • Despite Downturn, Design Centers Endure

    Builders are cutting back everywhere, but they are finding creative ways to keep their design centers open.

     
  • Survey: Death of the Design Center

    When asked if they felt centralized design centers would remain prevalent as builders return to core activities and business practices, results were pretty evenly mixed, with 42.5% of respondents saying yes, 45.0% saying no, and 12.5% remaining unsure.

     
  • 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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    Feature: Selling By Design

    Every Tuesday afternoon, Renaissance Homes sales broker Leslee Lahey locks up the single model home in the community she manages in the suburbs of Portland, Ore., and heads into town with high hopes that Renaissance's state-of-the-art design center will help her finalize a sale that evening.

     
  • Special Issue Report: The People's Choice

    In the age of personalization and customization, organizations selling to consumers must make themselves adaptable.

     
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    Ye Olde Design Centre

    When David Jenkins, owner of Suwanee, Ga.–based Winmark Homes, decided to add a design center to his garden of home-grown operations, he dug deep into the family-owned business' talent well. Five-year Winmark veteran Marty Milbrett was appointed design center manager and tasked to find a novel take...

     
  • Design for Dollars: Ryland Homes

    Two years ago, when Eric Elder, The Ryland Group's senior vice president of marketing and communications, first decided the Calabasas, Calif.–based home builder should to team up with Eric Mandil, president and principal of Mandil Inc., the plan was to use Mandil's fresh approach to color as a way...

     
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    A Downplayed Upgrade

    Hardwood floors and countertops are among the most apparent product categories when it comes to opportunities to glean profits through options and upgrades. How about carpet upgrades?

     
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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...

     
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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.