4 Top Tips for Selling New Homes in 2024
This New Homes Month, we asked experienced home sellers Lori Asaro, president at New Homes Selling Now, and Christy Beck, corporate director of sales and marketing at Caruso Homes, for advice and best practices so you can approach peak home buying season with confidence.
Here are four timely tips for selling new homes to buyers of every stripe:
- Know your brand. As much as you may want to be, Beck said, “you cannot be everything to every buyer.” A jack of all trades is a master of none.
It’s important to have a strong, specific sense of who you are as a builder, from your home style and aesthetic to the buyer demographic you hope to serve. A strong brand and marketing campaign should do more than draw in customers; it should draw in the right customers — the customers you know you can provide with the best home-buying experience.
A well-established brand can also help build beneficial relationships with builders in your area who fill other niches, opening another avenue for capturing leads through referrals. That way you can establish yourself as a trusted resource by directing buyers to a builder who is more suited to their needs outside of your niche.
- Set expectations up front — and set them together. Being transparent with your customers from the beginning will ensure both parties can get what they want. Remember, Beck said, you are a team. You and your clients are working toward a common goal, so work together by finding common ground.
“The sales process is an active interchange of meaningful conversations between humans,” Asaro said. By having honest conversations up front, you decrease the likelihood of unwanted surprises on both sides of the sales process and set yourself up for a much smoother transaction.
- Don’t rely on stereotypes. In previous decades it was common for sellers to practice something called “curbside qualifying,” where they would determine what buyers wanted based on appearances. For example, sellers would assume that older shoppers were looking to downsize, or that a young couple would want a home with a yard for their future family. But in 2024, Asaro said, these kinds of stereotypes no longer have any relevance.
According to a study by UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation, the average age of prevalence for homeownership in California is 49 years old, meaning that half of the 48-year-olds in the state don’t own homes and would likely be first-time buyers. This age varies state to state — in Texas, the age of prevalence for homeownership is 38, and in Florida, it is 42 — but it is generally increasing, meaning age is no longer a reliable indicator of whether a prospect is a first-time home buyer.
Additionally, according to a report by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), the number of households with children under 18 is declining, so young home shoppers may not be as likely to prioritize a yard for the kids as much as previous generations. Rather than making assumptions, Asaro recommends “asking pertinent, intentional and sometimes personal questions of your sales prospect and then having the discipline to actually listen and learn from their answers.”
- Form personal connections with your buyers. Not only will building a bond help you determine what potential clients are looking for without relying on stereotypes, but it will also build trust.
“In connecting with potential buyers, it is best to find something you have in common and use that commonality to create a bond, but it must be real and meaningful … You are creating a relationship of trust. Go the extra mile,” Beck advised.
“Be curious about the people who just walked into your sales office … Be genuine in your interest in them. Listen to them, engage with them, and through your sincere curiosity, you will soon be seen as the trusted adviser that they need to help them make their dream home a reality,” Asaro added.
For more new homes sales resources including articles, guides and Shop Talks, be sure to check out NAHB’s New Homes Month toolkit.