To me, everyone is a potential customer. Even if the prospect is currently not looking in the price range or area where we building currently, they or someone they influence may be somewhere else down the road. The point is that we only have one chance to make a first impression and it’s vital to make it a good one!

Usually price and location are the primary areas of interest when a potential customer learns what I do. But to simply answer that we are building in “happy areas” starting from $100,000 or $1,000,000 is possibly doing a prospect a disservice. A better answer is that I (we) are always evaluating possible locations and proper product and pricing as huge part of the evaluation process.

“Tell me more about the location.”

As we are a merchant builder we usually encounter a “live” prospective customer when they enter our model home. Our job, once they have made the effort to travel to our model, is to ask questions in order to see if our offerings are a fit for their current desires. The location is usually already acceptable to a prospect one they are physically on site but we usually are asked about proximity to schools, employment centers, shopping etc.

“What price point do your homes start at?”

Price is a tricky question that is best quoted in a range. Homes are such an emotional purchase and usually paid for with a mortgage that to shop with only price in mind is usually a recipe for disaster.

As the English writer John Ruskin put so eloquently “we require from homes two kinds of goodness; first doing their practical duty well; then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.”