In a recent spoof dedicated to the hurting Home Building Industry; I delivered a video advertisement disguised as a public service announcement decrying a cure for all of our housing woes. I use the word "our," because like most of you, I too am a home building professional working harder after the bust.

I have the privilege of selling the best new homes in the country, (and if you doubt it, stop by my community and bring your check book for an earnest money deposit!) Seriously, I know that the new construction boom times have slowed. For many of us - it's getting harder to write contracts on dirt, and liquidate aging spec home inventory.

Take a look at this screen capture of actual video player statistics of real slide show videos that I created to market and sell a few of my inventory homes last year:

Yes! I really do take my own medicine as prescribed for the home builder blues! My personal experience demonstrates that the New Home Marketing 2.0 tools and techniques that I have been demonstrating for the past 5 months on this blog are more than theory - they really work.

Don't be shy, try Specindex.com today!

The Specindex is the self-service, automated, online Home Builder marketplace, where New Home Sales and Marketing experts socially network with Real Estate professionals to increase their new home sales.

Editor's note: Specindex.com NOW SpecHomes.com

SpecHomes.com is excited for you to join us at our new Spec Homes Blog

It's all over the news - Home Builders everywhere are hurting!

Overall, residential construction stock values are down, most home builders are itching to sell their swollen inventory of newly constructed homes, and home buyer sentiment is way down.

As foretold in a previous post, "The Cure for Home Builder Blues;" a new start up in Houston, TX Spec Homes Inc., blazes forward to the aid and rescue of starving new home sales agents everywhere! The idea? Seek out new treatments to help ease the suffering of old, worn out, decaying new home sales and marketing practices employed by the home building industry. What is the prescription for a bad case of Home Builder Blues? Web 2.0 is the cure for what ails the residential building industry today.

"Press Play" below to view a short, yet heart warming tale of compassion and adventure about one man, a dream, and his mission n to eradicate the nation's home builders of this vicious malady...

The Specindex is theself-service, automated, online Home Builder marketplace, where New Home Sales and Marketing experts socially network with Real Estate professionals to increase their new home sales.

Editor's note: Specindex.com NOW SpecHomes.com

SpecHomes.com is excited for you to join us at our new Spec Homes Blog

I thought that I would let you in on "10 Secrets That You Must Incorporate into Your Online Real Estate Classified Listings, to maximize their effect in securing attention your home buyers attention."

Speaking of online classifieds...

Follow along with the diagram below to discover the features that an effective "Web 2.0" classified Real Estate ad should contain - and compare it to what you are currently offering your prospects online.

1. Detailed Property Information. Let it all out!

2. Interactive Tools. Give the buyer custom maps, mortgage calculators, and the ability to email the listing to their friends.

3. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

4. Customize a unique description of the property - written by someone who knows! Usually the person selling the home.

5. Must Have Multimedia! (If you don't have it... You don't get it.)

6. Exotic and Standard feature offerings gathered together into an easy to read list.

7. Transparency. Use Zillow or comparable home information to gain trust with your buyer so they know your asking price is fair.

8. Every way known to man to contact the seller.

9. Link to sales agents other similar homes and offerings.

10. Establish credibility with agent photo and Bio.

The Specindex is the self-service, automated, online Home Builder marketplace, where New Home Sales and Marketing experts socially network with Real Estate professionals to increase their new home sales.

Editor's note: Specindex.com NOW SpecHomes.com

SpecHomes.com is excited for you to join us at our new Spec Homes Blog

Yes, you can put your new home hunt on auto-pilot thanks to the kind folks at Specindex.com!

In a previous post, I mentioned a cool new way to get the Specindex listings from anywhere on the web. Did you know that you can also register to receive specific regional, and area listings sent directly to your inbox?

We have made this so super easy to set up, even an 8 year old child could do it!

Read below to find out how to get new home listings sent to your inbox:

1. Login to your Specindex account, or Register for a free one here.
2. Go to your My Account page.
3. Look for "Get Email Alerts."

   

4. Fill in the provided quick home alert, form with specific information regarding the types of new home listings you are interested in.

   

5. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the easy life of having the Specindex "New Home Marketing 2.0" system do all the work for you!

Side note - the Specindex adheres to a strict No Spam Policy! If you no longer wish to receive these email alerts for any reason, simply log back into your account, and click the "no" button, indicating that you no longer wish to receive the Specindex new home listing alerts... and the custom messages will stop instantly.

Add the automatic new home email alert system to your account today, and have one less thing to do every other day.

Find home builder inventory from anywhere on the web, at any time!

The Specindex is the only online marketplace where Home Builders and New Home Sales and Marketing experts socially network with other Real Estate industry professionals. Join this premier New Home Marketing 2.0 community for free, and learn why "Everybody Checks the Specindex."

Editor's note: Specindex.com NOW SpecHomes.com

SpecHomes.com is excited for you to join us at our new Spec Homes Blog

Editor's note: Specindex.com NOW SpecHomes.com

We are excited for you to join us at our new Spec Homes Blog

We are excited to announce the pending "Beta Launch" for SPEC HOMES INC. flagship product: Specindex.com - the Automated, Online, New Home Classified Listing System for Home Builders and Real Estate Professionals.

Simply register at the website: www.specindex.com and enter the coupon code "BETA" to receive the Free Trial; service terms and details can be found on the site upon registration.

Here is a short screencast video to show you how to get going fast:

We launched the site for live testing on 03/01/07 to test the stability of the programming, usability, and visitor stickiness. So far everything has went smoothly, and we expect more of the same great feedback from here on...

During the beta testing period, we are encouraging New Home Sales Counselors and Marketers, Home Builders, Investors, Mortgage Lenders, Real Estate Professionals, and Residential Construction Service Contractors to try our Specindex website services free! Once there, you'll discover a community of real estate professionals like you - who are serious about getting maximum exposure on the Internet.

The beta period is expected to expire on 12/31/07, followed by an official site launch on 01/01/08.

Stay tuned, as we will continue to release status updates on our Specindex blog.

The Specindex is the self-service, automated, online Home Builder marketplace, where New Home Sales and Marketing experts socially network with Real Estate professionals to increase new home sales.

Editor's note: Specindex.com NOW SpecHomes.com

We are excited for you to join us at our new Spec Homes Blog

Fierce competition in most developing residential construction markets today mean that the main differences between "Brand A Builder" and "Brand B Builder" are the colors, textures, and fabrics that the designers choose to decorate the interiors of the model homes.

Watch this early adoption of home builder marketing from the post depression era of 1930's America; pay attention to the tactics employed by the contractor's advertising firm to draw prospects to the closing table.

"Model Home Mania" still seems to be the staple of many modern day home builder's marketing diet. While a live demonstration of the product is an essential component to successfully generating new home sales, it is not necessarily an "absolute" to the prospect's buying decision. Not much has changed in the approach that home builders have employed in marketing new homes in the past 75 years. Fear, furniture, and fancy financing remain the "soup de jour" for most new home marketers today.

Buyer promotions and builder incentives are also popular new home marketing tools where there are relatively few differences being offered between today's builders. Unfortunately, all those fancy financing terms and deep discounts, usually benefit the sell-sell-seller more than the doe-eyed buyer. Today's new home buyer may not know this, but tomorrow's new home prospects will. Pending regulation and investigation into the nation's "housing bubble," will likely result in an increase in public awareness about the practices of residential construction companies and their peers.

Some industry analysts predict that there will be a long, slow, climb back to the building highs seen during the previous five or six years building boom. (In case there are still some skeptics to this developing fact, check the current stock valuations of some of the nation's top home builders.)

So what then can a home builder do to set themselves apart from the pack?

There remains that hardly acknowledged, and often under used form of marketing called "word of mouth advertising," aka the old fashioned "you did a good job" customer referral. (Today we call this new phenomenon "Social Marketing" or Web 2.0.) Whatever you call it, the home building industry must change it's approach to the consumer or we might as well be marketing cassette tapes or bomb shelters.

Utilizing the New Home Marketing 2.0 products and services found on this weblog could help start the conversation within your organization.

The Specindex is the self-service, automated, online Home Builder marketplace, where New Home Sales and Marketing experts socially network with Real Estate professionals to increase their new home sales.

Editor's note: Specindex.com NOW SpecHomes.com

SpecHomes.com is excited for you to join us at our new Spec Homes Blog

Social Networking on the Internet can help home builder's struggling sales and marketing teams to rediscover the definition of "community building."

This short video tutorial below, demonstrates how one start-up company in Houston, Texas (Spec Homes Inc.) utilizes the new multimedia, social networking, video sharing Internet, (known as WEB 2.0.) Thier aim is to help re-construct home builder marketing and advertising efforts by generating more home buyer and real estate professional interest, via an online multimedia new home classified sharing network called - the Specindex.

Click to learn more

The Specindex is the only online marketplace where Home Builders and New Home Sales and Marketing experts socially network with other Real Estate industry professionals. Join this premier New Home Marketing 2.0 community for free, and learn why "Everybody Checks the Specindex."

Editor's note: Specindex.com NOW SpecHomes.com

SpecHomes.com is excited for you to join us at our new Spec Homes Blog

The results are in, and this is one title fight bet you don't want to make!

There is a mounting showdown growing in the residential construction industry: Web 2.0 Technology vs. 20th Century Marketing. Unfortunately, most home builders haven't a clue how much money and effort is being wasted on the latter of the two contenders. According to both the consumer, and real estate professional, the winner will be the competitor who gives the customer what they want the most - quick and easy access to new home information.

Traditional marketing methods (ie. billboards, newspapers, radio, & television) are quite expensive, and mostly ineffective in reaching a specific target market. Below you will find a "taste" of a new home marketing tool that is easy to use, virtually cost free, and was created from start to finish in about 30 minutes...

Could this be the future of New Home Marketing? Yes!

Click to see Example

(Editor's update 05.25.07; I sold 3 homes using this one video after initial phone contact with different out of town home buyers unfamiliar with my market. Web 2.0 works for me - how about you?)

The Specindex is the online marketplace where Home Builders and New Home Sales and Marketing experts socially network with Real Estate industry professionals. Join this premier New Home Marketing 2.0 community for free, and learn why "Everybody Checks the Specindex."