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Tough Times Call for New Floor Plans
 Amped-up Web marketing and sales strategies will help in today’s tough market, but to really survive in this economy, builders need to refine and refurbish every aspect of their business — especially their product offerings.
If builders show discerning buyers new and innovative floor plans, I’m confident that they will see results.
Think Smaller and Smarter
Today’s economically conservative climate and a growing desire to live a more eco-friendly and energy-conscious lifestyle are generally two factors in the marketplace that are influencing buyers’ desires for smaller, more modestly sized homes.
But builders should keep in mind that the most popular homes are not just smaller, they are designed more precisely to function better by eliminating some excess traditional-use space and creating new, flexible spaces that fit the lifestyles of today’s buyer.
For example, in the 2,620-square-foot Cordoba model of Sarasota, Fla.-based Fidelity Homes, architect Don Evans of The Evans Group designed a kids’ work and study center that wrapped around the back side of the kitchen and was adjacent to the laundry room. The configuration and location enables parents to prepare dinner, while overseeing their kids’ Internet browsing and managing the laundry.
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The Cordoba model of Fidelity Homes provides the perfect tech space for families on the go, a niche between the kitchen and laundry room that enables easy parental supervision. Photo by Everett and Soule |
We merchandised the laundry room as a multi-use space that also functions as a space for wrapping gifts, doing crafts and storing pet supplies and cleaning supplies.
An adjacent Florida basement serves as space for storing kids’ backpacks, gardening tools, golf clubs and other sports gear and hobby items that would normally clutter the garage. And the garage has easy access to the kitchen — a must-have convenience to make it easier for home owners to unload groceries.
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Multipurpose mud rooms, such as the Florida basement in Fidelity Homes' Cordoba model, can be a great storage solution. Photo by Everett and Soule |
Cocooning Is Back
“Cocooning” is back and open floor plans with seamless connections from the kitchen to the family and dining rooms make for easy home entertaining with family and friends.
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The Arrowstone model by Connor Brothers Construction encourages and accomodates the entertaining and socializing fostered by "cocooning." Photo by Terry Allen Photography | To promote this trend in National Village, an empty-nester community featuring craftsman-style and cottage homes in Opelika, Ala., we merchandised the Arrowstone model by Connor Brothers. Construction featuring a large great room with a contemporary dining table set for eight and a kitchen bar displaying appetizers — fake food works well in models, but real appetizers will give your prospective buyers a more tasty experience of the home — and wine glasses set for four.
Remember, too, that outdoor living is a popular way to demonstrate lifestyle to entertainment-savvy buyers.
We turned the modestly-sized porch of the Creek Club Cottage model at Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Ga., into a summer kitchen, a perfect spot for winding down from work with friends over wine and steaks sizzling on the grill. While summer kitchens are popular, they can be scaled back in size.
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Amp up outdoor living with spaces that flow smoothly from the interior to the outdoors, such as in the Creek Club Cottage model at Reynolds Plantation. |
Floor Plan Do's and Don'ts
With the market as tight at it is, we cannot afford to make mistakes, so here are a few pointers on what to do — and what not to do — with floor plans. In today’s market, it’s best to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than your own.
Be very careful to preserve the sanctity of the master bedroom suite. Don’t have the master bedroom share a wall with the laundry room and its noisy washer and dryer or with kitchen cabinets. A spouse waking up early and banging around in the kitchen when the other spouse is sleeping on the other side of an adjoining wall does not make for a happy household — or generate many referrals.
We also suggest that you don’t overwhelm prospective buyers with too many floor plans. Most buyers will be satisfied with a handful of choices to select from — so we recommend that you offer no more than four or five floor plans.
But since you still want to appeal to a wide range of buyer demographics and life stages and you don’t want to limit the options available to prospective buyers who like to customize their homes, make sure those plans are flexible.
“Sliding Scale,” an article by Jenny Sullivan in Builder magazine, profiled a California builder who offered only a few plans with a variety of flexible floor plan configurations to “accommodate spaces such as a formal dining room, hobby room, guest suite or extra garage space as well as universal design features.”
Not only do prospective buyers today want options, to save money some of them are willing to provide their own.
Lennar Homes is selling homes to this do-it-yourself market segment at a community in the suburbs of Jacksonville, Fla. by offering homes without added upgrade costs. A sales agent in the community told me the model was part of the company’s “what you see is what you get” sales strategy, and it has been working. Lennar sold eight homes in one month not too long ago.
Rollout New and Different Products
Before television, homes did not have family rooms. Families gathered in the formal living room or parlor. Before washing machines and dryers, there were no laundry rooms dedicated to those appliances. These inventions brought lifestyle and floor plan changes.
Now that we have the Internet, laptops, PDAs, cell phones, digital cameras and iPods, I encourage builders to think about how these advances are changing lifestyles and how they can accommodate those changes in floor plans.
For instance, wireless home networking has reduced the need for dedicated office/den spaces. Then again, many people are working from home.
Technology has also helped foster the resugernce of a turn-of-the-last-century concept — living above the store — that is gaining some popularity in mixed-use communities in certain markets.
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Living abve the store was merchandised as living above the art gallery in the Rutledge model of Dock Street Communities in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Photo courtesy of Dock Street Communities. |
The Rutledge townhouse by Dock Street Communities, which builds in the Myrtle Beach area of North Carolina, is an example of this concept. We merchandised the commercial space of the townhome as an art gallery and included a “stop-and-drop” space at the entrance to the residence on the second floor where home owners can dump their wallet, Blackberry and iPod.
I challenge builders to work with their architects and interior merchandisers to examine their product and determine if their floor plans need a facelift. Success in today’s market hinges on a willingness to innovate and update.
Kay Green, MIRM, CMP, is the founder of Kay Green Design, a nationally recognized leader in model home and sales center merchandising based in Orlando. Green is a regularly featured speaker at national and regional builder conferences and an an instructor for NAHB Institute of Residential Marketing qualifying courses. For more information, e-mail Green, call her at 407-246-7155 or visit her Web site at www.kaygreendesign.com.
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