How to Help Your Customer Feel More Comfortable With Construction Loans

What are the reasons people buy resale homes over building thier own custom home?
Tangible product. They can see, smell, touch the new home they wish to buy.
Time line. Most resale homes are available with in 45-60 days.
Inventory. Easier to find an existing home rather than a vacant lot.
Variables. Building requires: Realtor, land, builder, plans, options, time, patients, vision, trust, etc....
Education. Many home customers that build homes invest more time into their "purchase" and at the same time have to educate themselves with land, building and builder.
This list can go on all day long, but the theme of the idea is HOW DO WE HELP OUR CUSTOMER FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE WITH THE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS AND THE CONSTRUCTION LOAN?
This idea is geared towards custom homes. Production builders actually do a fine job at this and custom builders and their customers can learn a lot from their presentation of information. Only if there was time, money and resources to emulate their marketing. So what can you do?
What can be done is education. If you are a builder, developer, or Realtor here are a few ideas:
Make sure that prior homes built can be used as sells tools for your future customers. I own a lot today because I walked in to a spec home that the builder was working on and fell in love with the home. The General Contractor happen to own the lot next door, now I do.
Use the web. Show case every home you have ever built. People love pictures. Remember you have no models to show case like production builders.
Choose the advisers you and your customers use carefully. Make sure your Realtor is a pro with the custom home building process, same with your loan officer, architect, and any other support. The very best advisor's have experience and know how.
Make sure your advisors are web based. Meaning, If I tell a customer AHK Contracting is great. My customer can actually go their website and get some level of comfort with their experience. I will use myself as an example too. I am a construction loan specialist. I can help you be more comfortable with this by my websites: http://www.communityfirstfinancial.com/, http://www.cffinfo.com/, http://www.yourlendertroy.blogspot.com/, http://activerain.com/troyschuricht. These websites share testimonials, credibility and education specifically on construction loans. Everything matters in the technology based society we live in. And people love to research things they do not know, especially things like construction loans.
Referrals, testimonials and past clients. Gather as many other peoples opinions, ideas, and experiences. We all love stories and we should try and share them.
Many custom home customers repeat the process, because they feel comfortable with the process, see the value , and love the feeling of building a vision.
My formula for success: EDUCATION+ADVISOR'S=COMFORT
Happy building,
Troy Schuricht