Disney's Latest Joy Ride: The Vision House

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Today's Numbers: Architecture Billings, Calif. Defaults, Hamptons Home Prices...

Consecutive months that architecture billings have risen: 5

From the American Institute of Architects:

"Business conditions at architecture firms continue to improve. As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the December ABI score was 52.0, down from the mark of 53.2 in November.  This score reflects an increase in demand for design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings)."

Calif. homes to receive Notices of Default, 4Q 2012: 38,212

That's a six-year low which hasn't been seen since the dawn of the foreclosure crisis. From Mortgage News Daily:

"DataQuick attributed the decline in early foreclosure filing to rising home values, an improving economy, and a shift toward short sales which accounted for an estimated 26 percent of statewide resale activity in the fourth quarter.  The median price paid for a home during the quarter was $300,000, up 22.4 percent from a year ago and 32.2 percent off the median's $227,000 bottom in first-quarter 2009.

"Home values increased through most of 2012, and the rate of increase picked up toward the end of the year. That means fewer and fewer homeowners are underwater, where they owe more than their homes are worth. That in turn means they can sell and pay off the mortgage, or perhaps refinance at today's low interest rates."

U.S. union membership in 2012: 14.3 million

From the New York Times:

"The percentage of workers in unions fell to 11.3 percent, down from 11.8 percent in 2011, the bureau found in its annual report on union membership. That brought unionization to its lowest level since 1916, when it was 11.2 percent, according to a study by two Rutgers economists, Leo Troy and Neil Sheflin. 

"Labor specialists cited several reasons for the steep one-year decline in union membership. Among the factors were new laws that rolled back the power of unions in Wisconsin, Indiana and other states, the continued expansion by manufacturers like Boeing and Volkswagen in nonunion states and the growth of sectors like retail and restaurants, where unions have little presence."

Average home price in New York's Hamptons: $2.13 million

From Bloomberg:






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Real Remodeling Reviews, False "Filtering"?

And speaking of online reviews ... does Yelp have something against small companies? 

A remodeler writes:

"We as a company have been asking our clients to review us online at various sites like Yahoo, Google, Houzz and Yelp. We have had two new reviews on Yelp's website in the past couple months, only to find that those reviews have been “filtered” by Yelp because they say these are fake or “less relevant” reviews. Although I have responded to Yelp with the clients' information (phone, address, project pictures, etc.) I cannot get even a response back.

"Some companies have noticed that only companies who pay to advertise on Yelp get to 'keep' all their reviews. This website has a link to a petition for the attorney general to investigate Yelp. Could you could rally the troops and gain some support for us and other remodelers around?"

Here is how Yelp describes "filtering," by the way.



So, what say you, remodelers:

Has Yelp filtered out any of your "less trustworthy" reviews? How have you responded? Please comment below.



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Smells Like Home Fries: Remodelers in the 'Hood

What are you good at when you're not "working," remodelers? Can you share it with your clients?

In Atlanta, David Sturm of Attention to Detail Home Remodeling loves to cook. And he's good at it. So after some of his remodeling projects, he cooks for his clients -- maybe a nice dinner in their newly remodeled kitchen, and maybe a casual brunch in their cul de sac.

That's what's going on below. Sturm (shorts and green polo shirt) whipped up "fresh coffee, eggs to order and my famous hash browns" for the neighbors of around this project, a kitchen and second-story makeover.

"We do this every time we remodel in a neighborhood where we desire to do more work," Sturm explains. It's a lot of effort, but I love doing it."

It's good marketing, too. After this particular brunch, Attention to Detail lined up two additional jobs in the same neighborhood.

We're looking for more stories along these lines, remodelers. If you'd like to share a "community building" marketing strategy that works for your business, feel free to comment below. Or shoot me an email: leah@daily5REMODEL.com.


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Value Selling: Tried This Approach, Remodelers?

Remodelers: Sure, homeowners can look up many of your costs these days -- appliances and fixtures, for instance -- but that doesn't mean they understand or appreciate the real value you offer. Or your real costs, for that matter. What about your company's vehicles, office space, staff training, licenses?

That's where you might want to do some value selling. Here's what Sandler Sales trainer Chip Doyle has to say:

 "My girlfriend took me to Hawaii recently so I was happy to offer to pay for some island tours for the two of us. Instead of letting me forget about work, she adeptly noticed that every tour brochure highlighted the value of the craft that each tour used. $1 million boats for fishing and snorkeling, $1.5 million dollar airplane for island sightseeing, etc. And of course for mere hundreds of dollars you could participate in a tour on each of these expensive vehicles. Their mention of these tour vehicle values was not by accident. They were exploiting a concept known as establishing context, validated by Cialdini in his book Influence. Several other authors have also documented this sales technique.

"Value selling is the concept of pricing products or services not based on their cost but on their value to the buyer. Understanding the context of the value to the buyer allows the buyer to justify the purchase and the salesperson to change how they quote and charge prices...."

Read the rest of Chip's post here. 

Read Chip's advice on remodeling sales specifically, from these past d5R articles:

• Learning to Prospect, Saving the Company
• Strengthening Conversion Rates
• Selling Isn't Debate: an Engineer's Confessions
• The Fourth of July and the Three-Foot Rule

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Project Management Software: Is There a One-Stop Remodeling Solution?

What do you use for project management software, remodelers? If you haven't already weighed in, join the conversation on d5R about project management software, in response to a reader who posed this question:

"I've been using Basecamp, however it's coming up short with managing multiple projects. One solution I am looking at is JetStream, which has been created specifically for the construction and remodeling industry. Are there other options out there?"

 Here's some of what your peers are saying:

I'm the definition of small contractor. Have even been referred to as a "Trunk Slammer" in some circles and I use UDA ConstructionSuite. My accountant and biz advisor once emphatically remarked when he found out I use UDA, "YOU use UDA?". It's a chunk of cash fer sure and most likely the big, big, big shops are more likely to use UDA....

and

I have yet to find one business management software for the remodeling industry that covers everything soup to nuts, from marketing for leads all the way through to re-marketing to customers after selling to them and completing their projects....

And thanks especially to John Clark of @designREMODEL, in Cape Cod, who shared this information (and more):

... I spent the better part of 2 days looking at (and trying out) the many Project Management Programs out there. (Note. I only looked at web based programs that I could access from anywhere with an internet connection.)

This is what I found. Many were very simple and limited. Example: Basecamp

Some had every feature and option possible. Example: Podio. Great for someone computer savvy, overwhelming and complex for most of my clients.

For construction and remodeling companies, there were a number of choices. Examples. Jetstream and BuildTools had many features and options that I liked. However at about an average cost of $250 month.

Ultimately I decided to go with a PMP called Project Bubble that had most of the features that I was looking for, had a shallow learning curve and was simple and easy for clients and trade partners to use. And at $24 a month, easy on the wallet. Most likely I will transition to a industry specific PMP at some point, but for the foreseeable future this program will meet my needs.... 

What about you, remodelers? Learn from your peers and weigh in here.



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Formica Gets Its Mojo Back -- and Now It's Green

Move over (quarried, imported, non-renewable) granite.

Did you see yesterday's d5R article about furniture recycled from beetle-killed pinewood, an otherwise "unusable" but abundantly available resource that, if not recycled, is a leading cause of forest fires? Here's a similar comeback story involving a sustainable, often-overlooked material. Sort of. 

From NPR's Marketplace program:

"...[B]y the 1970s and '80s, Formica had a bit of a bad rap. The smooth surfaces had been chipped or rubbed down to show the brown paper under the pretty colors. By the 1990s, expensive stone countertops became a status symbol, paving over passe Formica.

"But last year, Los Angeles designer Scott Lander chose white Formica for the kitchen in an award-winning project.

"'Most people were asking, 'What is this surface?' Most people didn't even know it was Formica,'" Lander says.

It's also getting more popular with budget remodelers. And, green builders. The company has switched to non-toxic resins, and uses recycled paper. Just one more way Formica is clawing back a little more counter space.

Formica is a classic, no doubt. At a museum several years ago, I saw a familiar item in a display case: a piece of 1950s-era Formica in the classic "boomerang" style. Not long before, I had purchased an old home whose kitchen had last been remodeled in the 1950s, as far as I could tell -- and the wonderful aqua-blue boomerang Formica countertops were a vintage highlight, along with the copper-colored double wall oven.

Too bad I didn't keep them when I remodeled.



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