According to Zillow New Construction’s Consumer Housing Trends Report 2023, 69% of new construction buyers in 2022 said they prefer to unlock properties with their mobile phones and tour them in person on their own time. And, 68% said they prefer to schedule in-person tours online.
If the majority of new home shoppers desire to self-tour during their first visit to a community, how can an Online Sales Counselor (OSC) assist in ensuring that self-touring leads schedule an onsite sales appointment?
2 min read
How OSCs Can Use Self-Tours To Generate More Appointments
Topics: self-guided tours osc new homes sales lead generation
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Meeting Buyers Where They Are in an Uncertain Housing Market
Starting in May of this year, rising interest rates, record-setting inflation and increased home prices have understandably made home shoppers nervous about pulling the trigger on buying a new home. However, the data tells us that home search activity remains strong despite this shift in the market. While homebuilders continue to market and advertise to meet their sales goals for the end of the year, they should consider utilizing solutions like UTour that allow their buyers to control their home shopping experience and commit when ready.
A “No Pressure” Sales Environment
Home buyers want to tour a new home without a salesperson so they can experience the home on their terms and feel confident before taking the next step. With UTour, potential buyers can schedule a self-tour that fits their schedule and can even book numerous home tours if they choose to. If they have any questions during their self-tour of the home, they can contact a salesperson directly. UTour empowers home shoppers to start the buying process when they are ready, which is more important than ever with the current climate.
Quantity AND Quality
When using UTour, the quality of prospective homebuyer leads that self-tour homes are much higher than traditional “eLeads” — even if home shoppers are looking more casually for a home. Traditional internet leads only provide minimal information such as a name, an email address and, occasionally, a phone number.
With UTour, when a home shopper clicks the “Schedule a Self-Tour” button on a builder's website or an integrated ILS listing such as Zillow, they are directed to a white-labeled scheduling site to select a date and time to self-tour the home. As part of the self-tour scheduling process, UTour requires each visitor to register and verify their identity with a government-issued photo ID (e.g., driver’s license) or a credit/debit card. In addition, authentication of their mobile phone number is also required.
This visitor registration allows UTour to provide a comprehensive data record for every visitor including their self-tour history and accurate contact information so your team can connect with them.
UTour also boasts an open ecosystem, meaning that the platform seamlessly integrates with many CRM software systems. When UTour integrates with a builder’s CRM system, Tour and Visitor data can be ingested directly into their CRM system in real-time.
Join the UTour Ranks
Since its inception, UTour has represented the industry’s most robust on-demand self-tour solution and builders have taken notice of this. Many of the top builders in the United States and Canada have utilized UTour to help their customers confidently, and conveniently, access their new homes and have meaningful conversations with a salesperson when they're ready to move forward. With the list of builders continuing to grow to meet the needs of homebuyers in a changing market, utilizing UTour has become a valuable, and expected, tool in the new home sales experience.
Want to hear more and see how UTour can help your communities? Schedule a private demo with our team today.
Topics: self-guided tours best practices new homes sales lead generation
2 min read
Why Self-Guided Tours Produce the Best Quality Leads
As the market dramatically shifted over the past few months, a heightened focus on new lead generation is now the main topic of conversation for most home builders. While the default theme of these discussions is centered around “more leads” — and yes, we need to fill the sales funnel continuously — an assessment of lead quality is equally important.
Topics: self-guided tours new home marketing new homes sales lead generation
2 min read
Why Stop at One? What You Need to Know About Multi-Home Tours
If you’ve been utilizing our self-guided home tours at your communities for a while now, you know that UTour is constantly working to innovate and improve the experience for both homebuilders and home shoppers. Our newest feature continues to do just that. Now, visitors can schedule a self-guided tour reservation that lets them explore multiple homes while using a single entry access code. Here are some of the biggest benefits you’ll see when you launch this feature in your communities:
Topics: self-guided tours new home marketing best practices lead generation
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Tour Times Matter: How New Self-Tour Duration Options Can Make an Difference
UTour’s builder partners know that the 60-minute self-guided tour has been our standard offering since launching. But just because something is tried and true doesn’t mean we’re going to stop innovating.
Recently, we’ve been seeing more and more builders supplementing their model home staffing with self-guided tours — enabling UTour for safe, self-guided tour availability after normal sales center hours. While going fully self-service is not for everyone, it’s been a successful evolution for many homebuilders in a variety of markets. So successful in fact, that builders want to offer a greater number of tour availability each day in order to reach more home shoppers.
So we’re introducing a new, shorter tour time that will let you maximize every minute. We just launched our 30-minute self-tour duration option. Here’s what you need to know about the new feature:
Topics: self-guided tours best practices lead generation
1 min read
Industry Problems, Solved: Trying to Get More Foot Traffic?
Home shoppers seek an immersive experience, and builders must provide more active involvement than any other industry requires. This translates to consistent outreach and deliberate, meaningful touchpoints with the home shopper every step of the way. Even still, there are some friction points throughout the process. It’s the responsibility of the builder to overcome these for a seamless sales experience.
Topics: self-guided tours new home marketing best practices lead generation
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Smart Homes & Self-Guided Tours: Are They the Best Investment for Builders?
Technological innovations are always on the rise, and they continue to grow in popularity through the years. What once were features used exclusively on the most advanced homes are becoming more accessible to the masses today. This shift indicates that while these features were historically considered luxury upgrades, they are now becoming expectations for modern home shoppers. But is it worth it for you to build smart homes? Yes — and not just to keep your homebuyers happy — the technology can help you manage the historic lead volumes during the sales process. Here’s how.
