Top 2019 Design Studio Trends for Homebuilders

[Pages:18]Top 2019 Design Studio Trends

for Homebuilders

Forward-looking trends for your new home design studio to help

increase upgrade revenue while improving design center workflow

and construction efficiency.

Table of Contents

The Opportunity: A Critical Analysis of Your Design Studio ........................................................................... 3 Front Line Trends: Improve Your Design Studio Experience .......................................................................... 5 Back Office Trends: Connect Your Design Studio to Your Build Process ..................................................... 9 Future Trends: Virtual Walkthroughs ................................................................................................................ 13 Use Technology to Meet Trends in 2019 and Beyond ................................................................................... 15

The Opportunity: A Critical Analysis of Your Design Studio

Leading homebuilders agree that to effectively and efficiently grow the business, building 100% "custom" homes is not an option. At the same time, homebuyers are increasingly demanding personalization of their homes. Buying a home can be the biggest and most intimate purchase that a family can make, and customization of home interiors is the homeowner's chance to create something that reflects their personal needs and values ? and the builder's chance to increase overall margins.

CASE STUDY:

The Rise of The Global Home D?cor Improvement Market

Growing consumer interest towards home decor

Increasing cost of raw materials

Growth in real estate industry

Improving life style

Increasing disposable income

Increasing rate of urbanization

2014

2020

Source: Secondary research and AMR analysis

"The Home Decor Market is expected to garner $664.0 billion by 2020, registering a CAGR of 4.2% during the forecast period 2015-2020. Furniture, textiles and floor covering products are key components of home decor. Expansion and

developments in real estate industry have supplemented the growth of world home decor market. Globalization facilitates easier and wider availability of home decor products and designs for consumers. Moreover, growing consumer preference towards adoption and usage of eco-friendly products, known for their minimal impact on the

environment, has also boosted the growth of the market."

*Source - Home Decor Market Report, published by Allied Market Research

Top builders are enlisting effective and efficient design studio management trends highlighted in this guide. Top production builders are empowering homebuyers with interior personalization, while improving overall construction efficiency and increasing profit margins on each new home sold. Interested to know how you compare with other production builders? Find out if you are maximizing profits and customer value through these advanced design studio management strategies.

Homebuilders and developers are perfectly positioned to take advantage of this growing market. Adopting an operational strategy of new home personalization through design studios can improve new home sale margins while fitting in the overall building cycle.

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Front Line Trends: Improve Your Design Studio Experience

Design studio appointments should be an engaging experience ? they are the perfect opportunity to amaze your homeowners. For effective design studio appointments, look no further than these top 5 Trends currently found in the leading design studios from the top residential builders across the country. These insights and best practices can help make your design studios more efficient for your homebuyers, and more lucrative for your sales and your design agents.

Front Line Trend #1: Developing an Effective Catalogue System to Save Time

The importance of curating your interior upgrade selections is critical to the homeowner experience and sales process efficiency. Builders must produce interior upgrade catalogues by each model home offered, to effectively organize this information. Whether in digital or print format, production builders realize that based on each model type offered, their vendors could only provide certain styles for a specific floor plan. The builder must control what upgrades the homeowners can see in order to prevent customers from falling in love with an upgrade package that does not work with their selected floorplan or model.

Creating a type of cataloguing system that showcases top selling upgrades is the best solution for most production builders. Digitizing this catalogue can drastically reduce production/printing costs, and simplify updates to the product information (especially pricing and availability) in addition to the significant time savings.

Front Line Trend #2: Building an Intuitive Flow to Enhance Visualization

To have an effective design studio appointment, it all starts with having the right options carefully presented to have an consistent flow through the space. The best builders are placing their products strategically around the design studio to make sure that the appointment process flows in a logical order of how the home will be built and what choices appear first. For example, homeowners will often match their hard tops against their cabinets.

Also consider that your top selling major finishes should be the ones visible in full size while other options or different finishes should show as a sample size. Customers are more likely to be drawn to the full-sized visible option. For example, builders are placing their best-selling counter tops in full size while secondary performing styles or colors are only shown as sample palettes. After all, secondary styles can be accessed in full view on the builder's digital product catalogue. The shift from previewing full-size products and inventory to seeing them digitally will prove to be effective and smooth to the customer d?cor process.

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Front Line Trend #3: Using Product Libraries to Organize the Studio

A product library can guide your design studio managers around the design studio based on the homeowner's model selection. Since certain installations take priority based on the style of home, production builders have a preset strategy to guide you around their design studio to ensure the homeowner designs the interior of their homes the same way the schedule will be put together for trades to come in and install the premium finishes.

The psychology of the home d?cor shopper quite logically starts with the bigger choices first! Homeowners expect to walk into your design studio and select their floors and cabinets and then will focus on the smaller pieces such as doorknobs and outlet styles. Some builders have even implemented a smooth work flow process throughout their own design studio appointments.

A product library can also act as a smooth guide around your own design studio setup. Due to growing demand, and the design studio space limits, builders are having a customizable product library that essentially acts as their appointment roadmap, notepad, and time saving tool they need in their design studio.

Front Line Trend #4: Using Product Libraries to Increase Sales Margins

Most builders that think critically about their design studio operations will agree: it is very challenging to fit all your products on the show floor. Some production builders have a digital product library or booklet that can be easily accessible on the show floor via a mobile application on a mobile or tablet. This point of purchase technology has allowed design studio managers greater flexibility in showcasing all the appropriate sales items as possible. Ultimately, preparing your product libraries for each appointment will prove greater sales success and a better customer engagement process as the flow in you design studio follow how the interior of the home will be constructed.

Since going digital with their product libraries, this did not mean that visual presentation was eliminated but only enhanced! Builders strategically display their best-selling interior finishes in full size in their d?cor studio's while secondary performing styles or textures are placed as sample tiles for homeowners to request further information. With a digital product library in hand, the design studio manger can quickly preview secondary finishes on a mobile device to appear in a sample home.

THE DIGITAL CATALOGUE IS NOT JUST FOR THE DESIGN AGENT!

Use your digital product catalogue to your advantage. Use tablets to display secondary options, or use scanners to allow customers to lookup

secondary styles around the design studio.

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Front Line Trend #5: Creating Digital "Wish Lists" for Buyers to Pre-Select Options on Their Own Time

Time is money. Time spent in your design studio is valuable, and more time spent does not necessarily equate to more options purchased. In fact, too much time spent in the design center can actually reduce sales of options, as buyers reconsider every possibility. Some production builders have taken the additional step of offering addon packages to homeowners via a digital portal. Builders report that their buyers are more comfortable in the design studio appointment after having previewed options. By doing "homework" on their own time, homeowners have the ability to create product wish lists via a web-based application. On their tablet in the comfort of their home, your customers then select their favorite add-on options on a mobile device that they would like to see at the design center during their appointment. This wish list functionality effectively trims down the amount of time used during the appointment since all the options that the homeowner dislikes have been excluded. No matter how much a home builder's interior selections products evolve, you can ensure that your d?cor appointments remain customer centric and efficient since you are only focused on the best products the homeowner is interested in.

DON'T FORGET IN-PERSON PREVIEW DAY!

A digital preview is not a replacement for preview day! Allow your buyers to familiarize themselves with your offerings ? in your design center and online.

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