How to Improve Green Home Sales

Sara Lamia, MCSP, president of Building Coach, points out the important things you should do when selling a green home

Jennifer Powell, Staff Writer
September 29, 2008
HousingZone

Sara Lamia, MCSP, founded Building Coach in 2000 to provide educational resources for home builders and home buyers. Lamia talks with Staff Writer Jennifer Powell about selling and marketing green. Lamia addresses how to attract home buyers with your green services and provides some tips and ideas to improve your sales.

1. What is the first step a home builder should take with regards its sales and marketing strategy if they are beginning to bring green aspects into the homes they build?

The builder needs to understand what green means to his or her market. Are they “tree-huggers” who buy Prius or are they mainstream consumers who buy Corolla, Camry or Lexus, depending on their price point? Builders need to determine which features will cost-effectively deliver the benefits their buyers will pay for. Finally, they need to get passionate about becoming a 21st century green builder who delivers quality to homebuyers and their planet. They can then get passionate about increased sales and profitability. Doubters only need ask Toyota if their quality products are profitable.

2. What, if any, extra training is needed for the sales staff when it comes to green? Should they sell the resulting quality of life aspects (better indoor air quality, more comfort, less maintenance, etc., versus the technical aspects of green construction?

It is imperative that sales staff receive specialized training about how to communicate benefits and features of the mainstream-green high performance home. Their ability to sell will be in direct proportion to their communication competence.

They should always begin with the benefits that matter most to their prospective buyers, which typically are healthier indoor environment and lower utility bills. Equally important is to then expertly communicate green features in a way that won’t lecture or confuse consumers.

3. There’s new technology coming out every day in regards to energy efficiency. Should home builders or their sales team be well versed in the new technology, at least well enough to convey how it will benefit of benefit to the buyer in their new home?

Builders and sales teams should be well-versed on both green design and products that are cost-effective and appealing to consumers. One example is a high-performance bathroom exhaust fan, which may cost an extra $100 or more. A bathroom fan that is truly quiet and works so well that towels will be dry in much shorter time are lifestyle benefits that buyers want and will pay for.

4. When selling their homes, should the sales team concern the home buyer with “green certifications/green building programs?” If so, how can they differentiate from other builders with the same green certification? What about competition with home builders who use other green programs/certifications or combine them?

We are truly in a green frontier. The race to create a national green standard is currently underway, and whether it supplants existing programs is yet to be determined. What builders need to understand is that “the more green the merrier.” Imagine consumers buying only one of an existing few automobiles of a certain brand! There is credibility in numbers and the more green-certified homes in a community, the sooner the green buzz will spread, increasing sales. As area MLS offer “green-certified” as a database search, these homes, like Toyotas, will command a higher resale price. Such data is already being collected.

5. If a home builder offers green products as an option to the basic floor plan that isn’t standard, should they market themselves as green builders?

In my opinion, unless the builder delivers a tight thermal envelope on every home, green products are icing on a risky cake. When at 40,000 feet, airline passengers assume that the plane hasn’t just been designed to work but has actually been performance-tested. Like airplanes, homes are built by human hands.

6. How should they market themselves as green home builders?

Builders should market the quality they deliver in every home. They should proudly feature their dedicated staff and trades, as well as the recycling and other green practices that demonstrate their commitment to their buyers and their planet. They can kick buyer socks off with the fact that, while delivering a higher quality home for the same or modestly higher cost, their new energy-efficient home will actually pay them back in dramatically lower operating costs.

7. In what way does the marketing strategy for a green builder differ from that of a traditional builder?

As green certification becomes the norm, the green builder will be able to demonstrate quantified performance. In some markets, this has translated into builder heating and cooling cost guarantees- wow! There are creative ways to demonstrate the benefits of improved indoor air quality, energy-efficient lighting, comfortable living space throughout the home, and more, which brings us back to specialized training. Sales staff needs to be able to provide a green tour of their home that will educate as it entertains.

8. What is the most difficult aspect of selling green?

The greatest challenge to builders and sales staff is to catch the busy consumers’ attention. If builders see selling as similar to the human courting process, it becomes evident that, without the first date, no relationship will develop. Instead of lipstick, the attraction is attractive photographs and simple charts that portray guaranteed energy bills or healthy indoor air quality for your children, or the Prius-like status of having a green-certified home.

9. Is there a wrong way to sell green?

Never preach sacrifice and guilt. Green should feel very good! Rather than insisting that everyone build small, stress that a tight thermal envelope of homes of all sizes trumps homes that are leaky, uncomfortable energy-wasters. Homes that are untested but claim green status because they install ENERGY STAR dishwashers are examples of “greenwashing” and only hurt that builder, their buyers and the entire green brand of quality.

10. What are some tips and/or techniques you can offer for our home builders who want to sell green? 

Smart builders will seize the opportunity that currently exists to differentiate themselves as green. They will pay as much attention to how to market green as they do to how to build green profitably. When the green wave washes over the industry, as it will, those who have gotten out in front of the wave will have established their brand, as Toyota has so successfully done.

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