comment
Rupert Bates I
s the housebuilding industry missing a massive marketing trick?
I refer to the Budget and the Help to Buy scheme, initially aimed, whatever loopholes or small print might lie ahead, at stimulating the new homes market and the new homes market alone through a shared equity loan.
A gaping window of opportunity is open before second-hand transactions get a turn when the mortgage guarantee comes into play on all properties up to £600,000 in the new year.
Critics shudder at more state support for housebuilding, conveniently forgetting the industry has to ask permission from the state, via planning, to go about its business in the first place.
PROPERTY COLUMNIST OF THE YEAR
Silver
Opponents see short-term support through mortgage indemnity schemes and shared equity loans as a long-term recipe for disaster, handing a dissolving crutch to buyers and artificially inflating prices, before a sub-prime fallout when government largesse runs out. Ride the short-term train I say. Worry about the long term later. In the long run we’re all dead. The Home Builders Federation has worked tirelessly to create and facilitate opportunities for its members, working on schemes such as NewBuy and FirstBuy. Now we have Help to Buy and an extension to the Funding for Lending Scheme.
The industry has been handed a
golden ticket to shout about buying brand new, not only to nudge homebuyers struggling to raise a deposit over the line, but to educate and convert the still disturbingly high number of potential purchasers who have
never even entertained the idea of buying brand new, rather than second-hand
Individual press releases from the large housebuilders hit the inbox. Taylor Wimpey reported an increase in activity last month in the wake of Help to Buy, with customers reserving 30 homes under the scheme. TW said it has been actively marketing and explaining Help to Buy to its customers with chief executive Pete
Redfern speaking of an increase in visitors levels and reservations and improving consumer confidence.
Redrow talked of a “welcome boost” to visitor numbers since Help to Buy was announced. Persimmon saw enquiry levels rise by around a quarter, Miller announced a range of Help to Buy events across its sites, and Linden Homes got 1,000 enquiries about the scheme in the first 10 days after the Budget. Good on them. But where is the generic
promotion of new homes? Where is the industry-wide call to action in a big, ballsy media campaign?
The industry has been handed a golden ticket to shout about buying brand new, not only to nudge homebuyers struggling to raise a deposit over the line, but to educate and convert the still disturbingly high number of potential purchasers who have never even entertained the idea of buying brand new, rather than second-hand. ‘Now is the time to buy’ is a much-abused strap line, but now really is the time. Okay, some lenders remain from the Royal Bank of Rumpelstiltskin, still insisting on your first born alongside your life savings. But then we learn that last month Halifax signed up its 50th housebuilder partner to NewBuy, helping nearly 1,500 buyers purchase through the scheme. We like to have a pop at lenders, but credit where credit is due – and available. Housebuilders need to put their heads and wallets together. The industry has never done generic promotion especially well. For an industry full of strong characters in builders’ boardrooms and energetic media agencies and PR there often seems a nervous reluctance to shout too loudly about new homes, other than the individual merits of a particular scheme on the market at the time. If you put together an edited highlights package of all the quality material currently being put together by housebuilders and their marketing teams for their entry submissions to the 2013 What House? Awards, it would make an incredibly powerful promotional tool for the new homes industry as a whole. Maybe agencies working with multiple housebuilders should ask clients to set aside a bit of budget to promote the industry as a whole and respond quickly and proactively to government initiatives and other news stories that highlight the advantages of buying brand new. If you were to design an advertisement or campaign to promote the industry and overturn perceptions and prejudices, what would it say? There’s a Show House feature in it for you.
rb@globespanmedia.com twitter.com/rupertbates
sh showhouseMay 2013 | 07
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