Selling New Homes without Physical Models

by Steven Greco on 02/01/10 at 12:18 pm

Lennar Homes in No. California has just opened a new community in Petaluma CA called “Riverview”. They are offering seven (7) new floor plans on 38 home sites and they will be selling the homes using Focus 360 Value Line 3D Virtual Model Home tours (architectural animation) in place of traditional physical models.

Lennar’s plan is to demonstrate the new plans over the web and from their on-site Welcome Home Center (double wide trailer) using Virtual Models Home tours displayed on large TV and computer screens and will use their production homes as needed to walk their prospects and buyers through the physical product. Their goal is to sell out the entire community without having to spend a dime on physical models which translates into huge savings on construction, merchandising, maintenance and carry costs.

Obviously, Lennar is not the first homebuilder to sell homes exclusively using Virtual Model Home tours however they are one of the increasingly forward thinking builders doing so with Single Family Home communities.

Historically, builders have used Virtual Model Home tours primarily to pre-sell multifamily condos, townhomes or high-rise when they don’t have physical models during construction which could run 6 – 18 months. However, we are now seeing more and more builders leverage our Virtual Model Home tours for Single Family Home communities. Especially for smaller infill projects where marketing budgets are slim and a set of physical models just doesn’t pencil.

Another trend I’m seeing is that many SFH builders are using more Virtual Model Home tours in tandem with their physical models. This strategy allows a builder to offer a broader range of plans more affordably (5-8 plans) and build fewer physical models (1-3 plans) saving the builder hundreds of thousands of dollars.

From my perspective it appears that home builders and home buyers are both becoming more comfortable and acceptable of Virtual Model Home tours as an alternative to physical models.

Here’s a peek of one of Lennar’s Riverview plans: