Bill has been active in the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis for years and Lori is an associate member of BAGI, the Detroit Metropolitan Building Industry Association, the Southern Indiana HBA and the Homebuilders Association of Fort Wayne.

We are excited about the opportunities that are available to us now that we are members of BAGI and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

Many builders have excellent incentives in place for homeowners that refer friends that buy. We’ve seen a few builders that pony up as much as $2,000 for each referral. This is a great tool to increase sales but too many times there are rules and stipulations that make giving a referral too difficult (i.e. not available if a realtor is involved).

The Simple Referral Program from URBaCS was created to simplify the referral process and drive traffic to the model homes and sales offices. The process is easy:

1. The homeowner e-mails an invitation to a friend to visit the model home/sales office
2. The friend brings in the e-mail which includes a unique code
3. The salesperson enters the unique code into the URBaCS application
4. The homeowner and their friend each get a gift-card from popular stores like Amazon.com, Starbucks and Wal-Mart.

The best part about the Simple Referral Program is that we at URBaCS manage, monitor, mail and pay for each and every referral that is generated.

For more information check out www.SimpleReferralProgram.com

New builders now have the option to choose one of the following three designs:

We plan to have two more themes ready within 30 days. We’ll be sure to post client profiles here when new builders come online.

The Sales Center is the premier online resource for sales advice and coaching.

Goal #1

Write a minimum of one weekly post about how to use the URBaCS program, or a best practice article.

Goal #2

Reach goal #1 ( No just kidding!) Our plan is to bring on a minimum of four new builders a month. To do this we are fine tuning our marketing plans. We will bring you more on this in a later post.

Look for more goals in the near future.

When looking deeper into the information released yesterday, some troubling trends become apparent. The data shows that the gains were from multifamily residences. In this case primarily apartment buildings. New starts in apartments make sense when your consider how the housing boom of 2001 - 2005 depopulated apartments across the country. People moved from apartments into homes with the help of low interest easy credit. Now with foreclosure rates rising, credit tightening, and higher interest rates, fewer consumers qualify to buy a home. The multifamily residential industry is preparing to fill the void.

This uptick in multifamily building is masking further declines in single family starts. Some builders are moving from residential construction to commercial construction just to survive. “Builders continue to do what they absolutely have to do in this market downturn.” says Brian Catalde, president of the National Association of Home Builders in a article written on the NAHB titled INCREASE IN MULTIFAMILY CONSTRUCTION LIFTS TOTAL HOUSING STARTS IN OCTOBER Some economist are pointing to the drag on the overall economy that the housing sector is becoming. According to Brian Bethum and MSNBC we may be two quarters away from hitting the bottom of the downturn.

It is increasing clear. We can’t avoid the law of supply and demand. Until we reduce housing inventory, and increase the supply of qualified buyers, we are going to continue stumbling in a downward spiral.

NAHB has released some information that is attempting to put a moderate to flat reporting on the market in their report of builder confidence.

Additional information will come out later today. Stop back for more details.

Are bosses evil, heartless creatures that live only to make our lives miserable? Not really. Stanley Bing uses the elephant to accurately describe some bosses. Elephants are the largest creatures in the jungle. They wonder any place they like without fear of any creature. Sometime their brains tell them to run one direction and other times their brains tell them to wonder off in a completely opposite direction. Where ever they go they spread destruction. Not because they are mean or cruel, they are just the biggest creatures in the jungle. When they move their large feet trample the earth and any lesser creature that happens into the elephant’s path. Elephants don’t do this maliciously, they just don’t notice all of the lesser animals (us) trampled under their large feet. That is how Stanley Bing describes an average boss. His teachings in this book educate us on how to recognize the elephants in our lives and then instruct us how to live in the same jungle (workplace) as these creatures and not become a smudge between their toes. Through proper grooming and yes training, you too can become skilled at manipulating your elephant to do your bidding. This hilarious book entertains and enlightens all at the same time. I have read it three times now and find some new little nugget of wisdom every time. Enjoy!

“There is no status quo. You are either getting better or worse.”

This seems to be especially true of our economy. In the 80’s we saw run away inflation. In the 90’s we had deflation, and the burst of the internet bubble. Now after the turn of the century, we have worries about inflation leading to the burst of the so called housing bubble. Since 2001 housing prices have increased and the demand for housing has increased. In 2005 the Federal Reserve decided that the party was over and started a long cycle of interest rate increases. This and other economic factors have lead to a pull back in housing prices across the country. Add to this mix the recent upheaveal in the mortgage industry and it is not hard to see how the housing industry finds itself in this current tail spin downward. The National Association of Home Builders released its report on housing starts for September, and the picture it paints is grim. You can view the report in detail here. The report states that the earliest it sees a turnaround in housing starts is 2nd quarter in 2008. For builders this poses the dilemma of how to reduce their current inventory without further deflating their already reduced prices.

One significant source of assistance is for builders to rely on their current homeowners for help. The word of mouth referral is still one of the most effective selling tools available to builders. If builders can harness the satisfaction of their current customers and turn them into self-marketers for the builder, the builders may be able to shorten the current downturn. Many builders have started focusing on providing incentives to their current customers as opposed to further price reductions. This is a far more effective process because price reductions can actually reduce the value of current customers homes. By holding pricing and providing incentives for customers to refer their friends, the builders create a win win situation.

Why is the so called moth balling of current projects good for the housing industry? It indicates a willingness on the part of builders to attempt to stop or slow down the current downward spiral in pricing. The glut in inventory has been devastating to new and existing home prices across the country. Many builders continued to build well after it became apparent that more homes were not needed. They did this to keep up with land purchase agreements already in place with developers. They also were attempting to maintain market share in a aggressively shrinking market. This additional inventory added pressure for further price reductions. Drop the recent mortgage market problems in the mix and we find ourselves with high inventories and reduced demand. Fewer buyers with the ability to qualify for a home, and fewer sellers willing to sell their home at a loss to move up to a new home resulted in additional downward pressure on prices.

Lower interest rates may make it more palatable for builders to hold on to property until prices start to rise or at least stableize. This will remove some of the excess inventory from the market and help us all. Having a couple of large national builders decide that they have found a threshold of pain they are not willing to go below could be the best news I have seen in a long time.

Say… Maybe that is a light at the end of the tunnel???