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‘Buy Now’ Spotlight Shines on New York City Builders
Lawrence Brinker, executive officer at the Building Industry Association of New York City, expected good things when he learned his HBA was a grant recipient of NAHB’s “Buy Now” Advertising Assistance Program — a program that provides advertising grants to qualifying HBAs hit hard by the housing downturn.
But the results he and his 120 members saw were nothing less than great.
The HBA’s advertising campaign featured an eight-week run of NAHB’s “Buy Now” print advertisements in the Staten Island Advance. The ads caught the eye of the newspaper’s real estate reporter.
“The theme resonated with her and stimulated a Sunday front-page story,” said Brinker. “That’s not an easy thing to do in the New York City market. We couldn’t have done it without the NAHB grant money.”
A concurrent radio campaign by the NYC Realtors® running the same messages also helped to more than double the HBA’s media exposure.
And the media is not the only audience taking note of the campaign. Membership levels are growing as well.
“The fact that NAHB has provided this grant to our HBA has impressed some of our former members so much, they’ve come back,” said Brinker.
“Our members report an increase in activity that is attributable to the ads but also to the article,” said Brinker. “People are investigating the opportunity we say is there for them. And the ‘Buy Now’ ad on our Web site and the property listings of our members are all getting more play than before the advertising campaign began.”
$2 Million Awarded to Date
To date, 117 HBAs in 36 states have received or been approved to receive more than $2 million in NAHB advertising assistance. Including the matching funds that the HBAs contributed, the total value of their advertising campaigns is more than $6.1 million.
$1 Million in Grants Still Available
NAHB is encouraging HBAs that have not yet received or been approved to receive grant money to apply for NAHB “Buy Now” grants.
The NAHB “Buy Now” Advertising Assistance Program provides grants to qualifying HBAs in three categories:
- HBAs conducting ad campaigns in the top 10 media markets (Tier 1)
- HBAs with more than 250 members operating in areas outside of the top 10 major media markets (Tier 2)
- HBAs with 250 or fewer members (Tier 3)
To qualify for grants, the ads must deliver a “buy now” message, be placed in 2007 and conducted in markets that have experienced a major decline in home sales and housing production.
To Apply
To learn more about the program, eligibility considerations and requirements, click here, or call Niki Clark at NAHB at 800-368-5242 x806l.
To view a list of the HBAs that have received or been approved for grants, and their grant level categories, click here.
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