The home has been built. The buyers have moved in. The job is complete. Everyone should go their separate ways, right? That’s wasteful thinking, according to Leah Thayer at daily5Remodel, who points out that former clients commonly lead to new leads. Builders who maintain and grow relationships with former clients often find them to be [...]

Matthew Strozier of the Wall Street Journal wrote about the pricing shift for new homes on Friday. As builders begin the spring building season, Strozier cites a recent note from Rick Palacios Jr., a senior research analyst at Irvine, Calif.-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting, concerning the “new normal” for home buyers. According to the [...]

In case you haven’t seen it, the new Integrity Windows and Doors website launched earlier this week, now offering a cleaner, sleeker layout that’s easier to navigate. IntegrityWindows.com now has a little something for everyone, whether you’re a builder, remodeler, architect or consumer. The new Dealer Locator will quickly put you in touch with the [...]

What does 2012 hold for home building? Best as anyone can guess — more uncertainty. But builders should take heed of Builder Magazine‘s list of 10 business trends to look for in 2012 as they gather themselves and strategize for the year ahead. After all, one shift in strategy could be all it takes to [...]

It’s nice to be able to choose, right? And it’s good to be able to offer your customers choices — except when it isn’t. Psychologists have long noticed that when people have too many choices, they can become figuratively paralyzed. It’s like choosing a sandwich: Sometimes you just want a selection of well thought-out choices laid out [...]

Multigenerational housing is experiencing a comeback as financial woes and unemployment have forced many families to share the same roof. Or, roofs, rather. Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are popping up across the country. As secondary homes built on residential lots, ADUs are sometimes referred to as backyard cottages, granny flats or mother-in-law apartments. They are [...]

Don’t believe everything you read – the American homeowner still largely prefers the detached single-family home. While several markets across the country like Boston, Portland, Minneapolis and Kansas City have seen a surge in condos, townhouses and apartments, data from the 2010 American Community Survey indicates 79.2 percent of new homes built in the last [...]

With new home construction in flux, now is a great time for builders to focus on doing business smarter. Whether shoring up irresponsible spending, mismanaging project timelines or, as we’ll focus on today, creating inaccurate estimates, there’s much a builder can do to protect the bottom line even while the market is slow. According to [...]

These days, new-home builders face many challenges when balancing lavish home features with competitive sales prices. This practice is called value-engineering, and it requires a firm grasp of trends and marketplace alike. Just because consumers are more cost-conscious — and sizable loans are more difficult to come by — doesn’t mean home buyers have given [...]

Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department reported June marked a five-month high for new-home construction, leading some economists to believe the housing market may be in the beginning stages of a turnaround. About 629,000 new home projects were started in June, which is an increase of 15 percent from May and 17 percent higher than [...]