These tools are becoming a competitive necessity. So why are so few offsite builders using them?
- Customers increasingly expect these tools to be available to them. Companies that don’t satisfy this expectation will lose business to their competitors that do.
- Industry studies show that visualization tools increase visitor time on the builder’s website, while also driving a significant increase in option sales.
- Visualization tools also dispel popular myths and misconceptions about modular and reassure homebuyers of the completed home’s quality.
Image courtesy of Cummins Design.
New home sales differ from existing home sales in several ways. Significantly, most homebuyers can’t visualize the end product, which makes the sale a bit of a leap of faith. Visualization tools help to bridge this gap.
The industry has traditionally relied upon renderings and sample boards to provide buyers with a vision of their new home, but these don’t tell the full story. That’s why production and community homebuilders regularly use interactive visualization tools. Some notable names that use them include DR Horton, Pulte Homes, David Weekley Homes, Lennar Homes and Toll Brothers.
However, most offsite builders have been slow to embrace these tools. And that could hurt their sales.
What They Do
Visualization tools include interactive floor plans, which allow homeowners to click icons that show various representations of the interior. These help customers experience the flow of the floor plan by traveling through it and getting interactive views thereby making it easier for them to decide which upgrades to choose.
They also let homebuyers experiment with colors and finishes. With just a few clicks of a mouse, siding, shingles, shutters, trim and door colors can be changed. Physical aspects of a home, such as window types, roof pitches, dormers, gables and porches, can also be changed, making the home clearer and less abstract to buyers.
These tools involve homebuyers on a deeper level by empowering them to explore more possibilities. By providing dynamic rather than static images, they give buyers a sense of emotional attachment and engagement.
Given these advantages, it should not be surprising that these tools have been shown to boost engagement metrics for builders. In a study by Hubspot, interactive content like customizable images was found to increase dwell time on pages by up to 3x compared to static content. Longer dwell time is a sign of more engaged prospects.
And Rock Content, a content company based in Boca Raton, Florida that is focused on cultivating website engagement and conversions, says that listings with interactive visuals generate 98% more views and convert to sales 50% faster.
Keeping It Real
“Visualization tools promote agreement between people,” says John Cummins, Owner of Cummins Design, a small interactive visualization design studio in North Manchester, Indiana. When making choices for a kitchen, a husband and wife might each have a different mental vision, based on their interpretation of the plans and renderings. “Visualization tools leave no room for ambiguity.”
Cummins began his career as a draftsman before becoming the engineering head for a modular manufacturer. Today, he caters to traditional construction, offsite builders and manufacturers, and the RV industry.
Although Cummins has seen an increasing use of visualization technology by builders in general, he has yet to witness much adoption with his modular clients. But he adds that as visualization gradually becomes the industry norm, offsite builders and manufacturers who fail to embrace it will be left behind. If they’re unable to provide customers with a complete vision of their new home, those customers will eventually move on to a company that will.
Image courtesy of Outhouse
Getting to Yes
Anewgo, a software company headquartered in Holly Springs, North Carolina, builds interactive tools, content and virtual tours for production and community builders.
The company’s software helps builders market and sell their new construction homes online through interactive content, virtual tours, and data analytics created to optimize sales and marketing efforts.
Anya Chrisanthon, Anewgo’s Chief Communications Officer, notes that people are visual creatures. She says that the company’s tools provide a fun experience where people can virtually interact with home exteriors and interiors. Buyers can personalize homes by applying their own color schemes and options. These tools work seamlessly with the builder’s website and are displayed to users under the builder’s brand.
Buyers need to register for an account to save their online choices, but that allows them to revisit their “home” at any time. That registration then becomes a lead for the company, allowing information to go directly into its customer relationship management system, or CRM system or to an address resolution protocol, or ARP, that allows integration with spreadsheets, pricing programs and other applications.
Chrisanthon also noted the power of visualization tools to keep buyers more engaged with a builder’s website. “Providing an interactive, visual experience keeps buyers interested and invested,” she says.
Image courtesy of Outhouse
Supersize Your SEO
Outhouse LLC, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, is a digital marketer providing on-site sales tools for homebuilding. These tools include exterior and interior renderings, animation and visual tours, interactive area maps, site plans and floor plans. Partner Kevin Weitzel, who is in charge of sales and business development, says builders usually begin with an interactive floor plan (IFP) and then migrate to an exterior visualizer tool.
Interior visualizers are used mainly for kitchens. An interactive floor plan is for the whole house; it’s clickable and let prospective buyers view realistic room depictions in the context of the overall floor plan.
Weitzel says that visualization tools have a multitude of benefits for builders. The National Association of Home Builders estimates two to four minutes as the average amount of time spent on a typical homebuilder’s website, but visualization tools can increase that. “We have tracked the data on tens of thousands of interactive floor plans that we’ve produced for hundreds of builders across the US since inception. IFPs alone can double, triple, or more, the time spent on page,” Weitzel says.
The additional time-on-site will improve the builder’s search engine optimization (SEO) results, while also providing the builder with useful data.
Another optional feature is the ability to upgrade customers’ product choices. In fact, IFPs and visualizers that update pricing as options are chosen will lead customers to choose more options. “We have builders that see an instantaneous increase in option sales of 40% in most cases,” Weitzel says. “This elevates the bottom-line margin.”
Visualization tools are especially applicable for offsite builders because they can help dispel myths about the industry, while also educating potential buyers, Weitzel adds. He says that the myths that he’s heard center around what modular homes will look like when complete, and that people want to know it will be no different than any other home. He asserts that this can be resolved by showing the various home styles through the visualization tool.
Image courtesy of Anewgo
Seeing Is Believing
Scott Stiers, Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Heckaman Homes, a modular home manufacturer in Nappanee, Indiana, says that the company has been using exterior and kitchen visualization tools on its site for two years.
The exterior tool allows users to change colors and types of shingles, siding, window trims and roof pitches from 5/12 to 10/12. In the kitchen visualizer tool, the user can experiment with various combinations of cabinet species and make color choices for countertops and flooring. He says these tools give his company an advantage over competitors that don’t use them.
“It definitely sets us apart,” Stiers says. “Homebuyers love being able to personalize their home and to actually see what their new kitchen will look like. Builders love it because it’s a source of leads for them and it delivers customers to their door pre-educated, and having already selected colors options and finishes.”
Stiers says that his company’s builder customers use these tools when they build spec homes and whenever they need to overcome customer objections. “Builder customers can select between roof pitches and shutter colors and actually upsell themselves,” he says.
He realized the value after visiting CertainTeed’s Colorview site (colorview.certainteed.com) and seeing how it lets visitors experiment with different shingle and siding colors. Stiers thought, “Why can’t we do that?”
He makes a comparison between the graphics used in the industry standard Chief Architect and more sophisticated visualization tools that are available today. “Chief Architect is a great tool, but it doesn’t give you that realistic experience that these visualization tools do,” Stiers says. “These tools go way beyond.”
Greg Bray is Owner of Blue Tangerine, a digital marketing and website design company based in Tyrone, Georgia. Blue Tangerine works primarily with community homebuilders and regularly builds sites that include visualization tools.
When asked why he believes these tools are applicable to offsite builders, Bray says that the benefits are the same as for any builder. “Any time there is not a physical model for someone to visit, these tools fill that gap in understanding. Many buyers can’t look at a two-dimensional floor plan and really understand the flow and feel of a home.”
Visualization tools vary in cost and capabilities, but many seem to have competitive pricing. Hosting plans start as low as $7 per month. Interactive floor plans start at $100 per plan with the flexibility to add optional upgrades in $25 increments. Exterior and interior visualizers begin at $300 per elevation image.
Image courtesy of Anewgo
Taking a Leap
Connecticut Valley Homes, a modular home builder in East Lyme, Connecticut, recently went all-in by totally revamping its entire floor plan collection with new renderings, redrawn floor plans and visualization tools for 80 of its home plans. The project took over a year to complete.
Spearheaded by Owner Cathy Taylor, the company worked with Anewgo on the project. Connecticut Valley Homes’ Marking Manager and Building Consultant Jessica Kimble recalled it was a project that took more than a year to complete, but the end result was worth it.
“We’re a custom [modular] builder, and we consider our competition the local custom builder, so we need to hold ourselves to the same standard as them,” Kimble says when asked why they undertook the project. “Customers were already coming to us asking if we had 3D tours.”
Analytics confirms that the company’s decision to go full tilt with visualization tools is paying off. In compared views for the same two-month periods in 2023-2024 there has been a “huge increase” in the amount of floor plan page views, Kimble reports.
Visualization tools allow visitors to choose between several color schemes for a home and make custom material and color edits to the exterior. The tools can dispel preconceived ideas people may have about modular homes, too, Kimble says. The preconceived ideas center around design and choice limitations. These tools help buyers visualize the exterior of the home in several different ways utilizing various material and color options.
While customers make initial selections online, they are still are required to come to the design center to verify their choices, Kimble says, which can result in customers changing their minds after seeing the materials and colors in reality.
Another modular builder using visualization tools is Griffith Homebuilders of Iowa, which has four locations in that state. Company
President Shawn Corkrean says that they have experimented with these tools for several years. “We have looked at kitchen design, color selection, exterior colors, 3D virtual tours and general option selection,” Corkrean says. “We have had some hits and misses.”
Like Kimble, Corkrean says customers’ willingness to make selections from a screen seems to be growing, but that there are still issues. Customers can get bogged down with old versus new selections, and one of the biggest hurdles is computer screen resolution. “Do they trust the color they see on the screen to be the same as the in-person color?” he asked. “As of today, most do not.”
Implementing visualization tools has been challenging, Corkrean says, and has required close work with their modular manufacturer. The company works with Rochester Homes based in Rochester, Indiana, which has helped create the digital images and content that Corkrean needed. “Without their work, it would be a lot harder and more expensive,” he says.
On a good note, he is seeing more people making a majority of choices online and sticking with those choice. “Hopefully this trend will continue,” he says.
Reed Dillon is a content brand specialist, marketing consultant and freelance writer that focusses on offsite and new construction. He is the owner of Creative Brand Content in Moneta, Virginia. Contact: [email protected]
