Markham, ON, January 8, 2009 – Constellation HomeBuilder Systems, the largest provider of homebuilding software, announces the availability of nine new homebuilding software technologies. Instead of cutting back on development, in a time when many homebuilding software companies are struggling to meet the most basic customer support requests, Constellation is taking this opportunity to increase its investment in new technology and solutions for home builders. “We are continuing to invest in new products and services for home builders and maintain our long-term commitment to the home building industry”, says Dexter Salna, President of Constellation HomeBuilder Systems. “As everyone knows, the home building industry and real estate in general are very cyclical and, as a result, there has been very little long term investment in software for homebuilders. The long-term stability of Constellation ensures that we will continue to support our customers and bring new solutions forward to help builders and land developers compete in any type of market condition.”
Constellation will be at the 2009 International Builders Show in Las Vegas, NV from January 20th-23rd 2009; booth #C4299. Please contact us to request an appointment, or visit our booth during the show. All of our new solutions will be available for demos and our product experts will be available for detailed discussions.
With Constellation, home builders have security and stability with their software investments and the comfort of knowing that they will be supported now and in the years to come. Our continuing investment in software for home builders and land developers will help Constellation customers manage costs more effectively and respond to changes more quickly in 2009 with the following new technologies and solutions.
Land Development
Constellation LandDev, an integrated web-based land development system designed exclusively for land developers with flexible “best practices” to automate workflow, reduce and control costs, view cash flow and job schedules, while at the same time automating many tasks that are now manually performed. LandDev includes a vendor portal and supports detailed and summary level budgeting, estimating, bidding, contracting, and payment processing with easy to manage security and approval settings.
Marketing and New Home Sales
Constellation CRM Marketing is an industry-proven new home sales and marketing system that enables you to capture all relevant customer information for targeted, customized campaign management. The hallmark of every great marketing strategy is to know and communicate effectively with your prospects. Who are they, individually or as a group? When, where and how are they likely to buy? With easy-to-use tools to help you ask the right questions, you’ll understand and meet your customers’ budget and lifestyle preferences every time. Stay ahead of the competition; improve productivity and profitability with personalized marketing campaigns to turn qualified leads into new homebuyers. This highly disciplined, flexible system gives you the unique ability to design, build and deliver buyer-qualified products with every home you build.
Design Center Upgrades and Options Selections
OnLocation-Design Center is an integrated mobile device software application that helps design center staff easily manage options, upgrades, and color selections while helping to maximize the amount of each sale. During option and upgrade selection appointments, sales staff can walk through available options and upgrades while keeping running totals and making suggestions within the home buyer’s budget. With fewer errors and no additional data entry, the sales documents and addendums are printed and signed immediately.
Executive Dashboards and Reporting
NEWSTAR Enterprise and FAST have been updated with enhanced executive dashboards and reporting functionality. With FOCUS and FAST Insight, managers, field staff, vendors, and other partners can have access to production and accounting information as needed. Key business indicators are visible in a graphical format with the ability to drill down and look at the data in additional detail when making critical decisions.
Accounting and Production System Enhancements
Constellation’s core products include home building accounting and production systems used by over 40% of the top 100 home building companies in North America and over 1,400 home builders in total. Our mission critical production and accounting systems include FAST, NEWSTAR, Builder 360, BuildSoft, Constellation CRM (formerly Computers for Tracts) and LandDev. We continue to support and enhance these systems with the latest regional and regulatory requirements and bring new functionality to each system to help our customers improve their core operations.
Field Scheduling and Quality Control
OnLocation-Construction Manager is the latest solution in the award winning software OnLocation family of mobile device applications for home builders. In addition to core scheduling functionality and payment approval, field staff and inspectors can easily identify and record quality issues at any point during the building cycle and beyond. Not only can vendor payment be withheld, but issues can be addressed easier and tracked over periods of time. Using the camera capabilities of many mobile devices, you can capture photos from the field and automatically categorize them within the system. Once they are in the system, they can easily be made available for all employees and distributed to managers, vendors, and home buyers as necessary. The photos and easy identification of quality issues becomes a key tool in supplier and trade negotiations.
Warranty and Homeowner Expectation Management: Driving Referral Sales
Constellation BuildSERV - Ownership Guide is a hosted web portal and e-mail service for the delivery of home care and warranty information to new home buyers. Multiple touch-point communication tools help you track responses and reinforce your warranty and customer service standards. Integrated lead referral programs offered during and after the warranty period will help you drive referral sales.
Home Owner Portal and Customer Self-Serve
Constellation HomePlate is a home owner web portal designed to enhance the home owner experience by providing 24/7 Internet access to construction schedules, warranty requests, and home purchase information from contract to warranty. It’s designed to deliver instant information to your customers anytime, anywhere, without phone calls or phone staff. HomePlate is easily customized to match your website and data flows seamlessly between your production system and the HomePlate website.
Database and Technology Flexibility
NEWSTAR Enterprise, FAST, Builder 360 and Constellation CRM all operate on Microsoft SQL, which is essentially becoming the industry standard database technology. Microsoft SQL, familiar to many home building professionals, provides self-tuning for database performance, replication built-in for faster and easier reporting, more security with failover clustering, and enhanced automated out-of-the-box scheduling and alert services.
About Constellation HomeBuilder Systems
As the largest home building software company in the industry, Constellation HomeBuilder Systems has helped more than 1,400 builders manage their information technology costs with integrated software solutions to run their business from dirt to warranty. From planning to homeowner services, we have land development software, new home sales and marketing software, production, purchasing, scheduling, accounting,
warranty, electronic homeowner manuals, and vendor portal solutions designed exclusively for the home building industry.
