On Accelerate Summit day two, industry professionals jumped into all things home building sales and marketing. It became clear that AI, data, and customer-centered design are reshaping sales and marketing strategy in new-home construction.
This year’s Accelerate Summit sessions emphasized using technology to solve business problems while preserving transparency, human connection, and a clear understanding of consumer needs. Below are the deep dives, breakout session highlights, and quick takes from the second day.
Deep Dives
Time is the new luxury item. Sheila Hall, director of sales at Deer Valley East Village in Utah, shared insights on what makes this modern mountain destination such a distinctive development story. She cited financial prowess, vision, and segmentation as key factors in its success. A buyer described East Village this way: “It’s like going back to 1960 and buying real estate in Aspen.”
Hall told the audience that the No. 1 thing customers are willing to pay extra for in new construction today is time. And they’re not talking about faster construction. What they really want is to spend more time in their home, and the area’s easy access means less time getting there in a car or plane, and more time enjoying life in Deer Valley.
Visualization in the age of AI. With the addition of Zonda to its roster, CoStar Group helps visualize not only the built world through its Matterport offering, but also the unbuilt world. Zonda chief operating officer Andy Reid said this perfect fusion of built and unbuilt visualization will revolutionize the entire consumer home buying process and journey. He previewed two upcoming visualization tools: Zonda Dimensional Photo (ZD Photo by Zonda), which will reinvent the renderings marketplace when it rolls out in quarter one of 2027, and ZD Community by Zonda, which will visualize an entire community before it’s built.
CoStar Group imaging research and development lead Gian Lorenzo Ferretti impressed the audience with Matterport’s 3D Exteriors Powered by Gaussian Splatting, which brings the community and the home into one connected experience with spatial alignment.
It’s never been more important to reduce information overload for buyers and lead with likability. According to Jeff Shore of Shore Consulting, AI can result in information overload for buyers, which reduces confidence and increases uncertainty. The salesperson of the future is someone who can distill this information overload and simplify it for the buyer to increase confidence. Likability is also paramount in building trust and growing confidence. Shore’s No. 1 rule? Live in the right home. That’s the job of sales: to help buyers on their journey to live in the right home, and to design the journey around confidence, not merely information.
Breakout Session Highlights
- Online sales: Serve the market we have. Jen Barkan, director of online sales for DoYouConvert, says we need a mindset shift from creating a market to serving the market we have. Online sales counselors are critical as the first human touchpoint in an increasing digital world, and despite a challenging environment, they’re driving the best conversion metrics since 2012.
- Social media: People trust people, not brands. Authenticity is key. Sometimes this means throwing out the editorial calendar and being less planful. The process of working with creators requires time and trust, and marketers should view it as a testing environment.
- AI’s impact on advertising: AI makes the audience better informed, and traffic and leads are higher quality as a result. But it’s important to remember that AI is not the objective. It’s a tool. Marketers still need to lead with strategy.
- Building trust: Trust is the foundation of every buyer’s willingness to refer.
- PR is back with a vengeance. Panelists on the “Built for Buyers and AI: Why Builder Websites Matter More Than Ever” session agree that PR is essential in the age of AI.
- From traffic to sales: Closing the marketing-sales gap. How to deal with less traffic that’s harder to convert? Solutions include increased personalization, and putting your marketers in the field so they know what they’re marketing.
Quick Takes
- Data first, AI second. Builder technology leaders agree that clean, connected data and clear KPIs decide whether AI pays off, but no one is waiting for perfect data before starting.
- Marketing is turning into a technology job.
- Marketing leaders agree that people want to spend less time talking with salespeople and more time doing their own research in advance. This is actually a positive for builders because it makes the buying process more frictionless.
- Transparency sells. Tri Pointe Homes found that showing full option pricing online raised option revenue instead of scaring buyers off.
- Design for life stages. Shea Homes is building flexible plans and accessible dwelling units for multigenerational households and passive income, and Minto is selling a lifestyle with the home as the ticket to that lifestyle.
- People do not buy what they want. People buy what they believe in.
- Humanity over tools: AI is a vehicle, and the work is to listen, show up and keep promises.
