I live in an area where the best buyers of new construction are retirees moving in from other areas. I’m thinking of running some classified ads in their local newspapers. There are no clear categories for this type of thing. Real estate is the closest I find, bit I’m not selling real estate. I’m trying, as a GC, to reach people before they get here. Does this sound stupid? Has anyone ever done anything like this? A better way to accomplish this?
Thanks, John
Replies
How many different local areas are we talking about ? 5? 10? 1000?
Seems like you might be better off spending the same dollars advertising heavily in the real estate adverts in your area. Let the mountain come to mohammed, so to speak.
Naive but refreshing !
I don't have any answers for your questions but I wonder how many retirees deal with builders vs realtors. Assuming that the bulk of buyers are simply calling realtors, then trying to reach these future homeowners is probably not worth the effort. Furthermore, I'd like to think that anyone who has reached retirement age has probably figured out that the yellow pages or a newspaper ad is NOT the best way to find a builder. Just my opinion though.
john-- if i read you correctly
you live in an area---for the sake of conversation we will say Fla. or the south west-------------- which attracts retirees from the snow belt????
and your idea is to run ads back in New York, or Pittsburg or whatever.
i would say that would probably be in-effective because your advertising dollars would be too dispersed. your retirees are comming from too many different locales for you to cover effectively.
i would approach the situation--from the destination. I would approach it sideways. I would try to become well known as THE company which specializes in truly accessible housing in your area----you know-wider doorways, safer floor plans, less/no stairs-whatever---and I would try VERY hard to develope models which feature these design issies--but don't LOOK as though they do. In other word I wouldn't want my product to look like a nursing home, LOL.
I think it would be much more effective to saturate the destination--than to in-effectively advertise in the points of origin.
HOWEVER-- if you have a realty company in your area--that is part of a national chain--or at least has offices back in the "departing cities"---you MIGHT be able to set up some kind of referall deal through the existing system of realtors. THAT level of finesse would be well beyond anything I could imagine contemplating myself.
You have an interesting idea.
stephen
Thanks for your reply, some good ideas. I am in southwest Colorado and the majority of people come from either southern Cal or Arizona (to escape the heat). So I was thinking of these two areas and only need to land one or two a year. How to do that, not just be another name in the local directory and not spend to much money is the dilemma.Thanks, John