Design Centers

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    Design Dream Team

    Beazer and timberlake team up to sell more topline cabinetry.

     
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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...

     
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    Option Overload

    There is a way to turn the design and options experience into an absolutely positive experience.

     
  • Options Unleashed

    More than 300 builder and manufacturer representatives worked together to prepare the launch of Envision, an online options management program that, in effect, creates virtual design centers customized for each builder.

     
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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...

     
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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.

     
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    Cabinets and Counters Pull Kitchens Together

    Kitchens have long since become the center of gravity for most homeowners. And for most new home buyers, the two ingredients that have the greatest power in pulling the room together, say design center veterans, continue to be cabinets and countertops. Not surprisingly, those two categories also...

     
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    Profits Underfoot

    U.S. Home's design center in Phoenix is doubling its flooring display space to accommodate more sales consultants and Photo: Courtesy Alloc InteriorsBuilders are profiting from flooring upgrades popular with home buyers.

     
  • 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...

     
  • Design Training

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

     
  • The Value of Options: Design Center and Options Process

    Arguably the industry's most important process innovation of the past two decades has been the insertion of "customization" (or, in current builder parlance, "personalization") into the production building environment. But it also has raised the stakes for builders, creating inherent difficulties...

     
  • 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...

     
  • Profit by Design

    Wine corks were popping in January at the gala opening of KB Home's newest home studio, an 8,000-square-foot design center in Tampa Bay, Fla. But while the facility, on the heavily traveled road to Busch Gardens, is the latest KB has opened, it is by no means the largest. The middle range might be...

     
  • 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.

     
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    Urban Outfitters

    At The Pinehills, a 3,060-acre, master planned community in Plymouth, Mass., nothing was overlooked. According to Green, these quality touches are more costly in terms of time than money.

     
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    Center Stage: Set the Scene for Sales

    You've heard it a millions times -- you only get one chance to make a first impression. Well, like it or not, it's true. And for a builder, that initial contact point is usually the sales center, so it's got to make a significant positive impact.