“I Just Bought a Newly Built House Online!”

Key Highlights

• New homebuilders seeing higher than expected demand for virtual buying
• New homebuilding developers piloting programs for buyers to choose, design, finance their homes virtually

Pandemic Uptick in E-Commerce Now Extending to Online New Construction Home Buying

Just last week, we’d say, ”Look at the great new sweater I just bought online.”  Today, some new homebuyers are saying, “Look at the great brand-new house I just bought online.”

Major New Homebuilders Piloting Online Virtual Home Buying Programs for Newly Constructed Homes

Taylor Morrison Home and Pulte Home are currently piloting programs to enable buyers to choose, design and finance a new home.  After doing all that online, those homebuyers can simply put their new home in their shopping cart.

New Home Builders “Catching Up” with World of Ecommerce

Sheryl Palmer, CEO of Taylor Morrison, a publicly traded homebuilding business, said, “Really what our industry needs to do is catch up with the world of e-commerce and what every other industry is doing.  That doesn’t mean that everybody will buy a house online but we want to make sure that we give the control to the consumer so that they can communicate with us the way they want to.”

“To-Be-Built” Reservation System Already Buzzing

Since the launch of Taylor Morrison’s to-be-built reservation system in the last six weeks, Palmer said,”…in total we’ve seen over 1,500 shopping cart entries, and probably something close to a 60% conversion (to sales.)  That’s 10 times what you would normally see.”

Atlanta-based Pulte Group is, at this point in time, Taylor Morrison’s direct competitor in the world of virtual new home buying.

Braddon Jones, a regional president with Pulte, said, “It allows (customers) to choose among different floor plans…exterior elevation and colors…design options, cabinet color…(and) once those choices are complete, it shows the total price of the home, which the customer can review, and then a home purchase agreement is generated.”

Virtual New Home Buying Here to Stay?

According to Jones and in agreement with Taylor, “Consumers have gotten significantly more comfortable making big decisions behind screens.  They do research behind screens, they want to compare different options behind screens on their own terms on their own timing…”

Thanks to CNBC.

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