About the Homebuyer Response Management Study

During 2020 Gloho conducted a nationwide Homebuyer Response Study for 250 new construction projects located in the United States. The purpose of the study was to determine how new projects were responding and managing potential home buyers throughout the sales cycle. The study was done by filling out lead forms of websites of new construction projects during business hours and measuring their responses and follow up efforts. The new projects were given 60 days to respond and were measured according to four key areas: response times, call response times, number of follow up email attempts, and number of follow up call attempts. The results show developers and homebuilders have a large room for improvement and could accelerate sales significantly with faster responses and nurturing potential homebuyers.

Response Times

Lead response time is one of the fundamentals that determine the success rate of converting online leads. According to the Lead Response Management Study, the odds of contacting a web submitted lead increases by 100X if the response time is within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes and the odds of converting a web submitted lead increases by 21X if the response time is within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes. ^[1]

The study yielded that the average response time was 23 hours, 38% of projetcs responded either 3 days later or never at all, and that 31% of the new projects responded within a 5 minute period. However, it’s important to highlight that 45% of the responses within a 5 minutes period were through instant auto-emails. Additionally, just a small minority of new construction projects ever called potential homebuyers. Only 17% of projects responded with a call attempt as the initial response and amongst these initial responses only 6% called within the first 5 minutes.

Number of Follow up Emails and Call Attempts

The buying journey for New Homes can take upwards of 5 to 6 months and homebuyer leads are often at different stages of the buying journey when they register. It can be the case that when a homebuyer lead registers, that lead hasn’t contacted other new construction projects. According to the Online Marketing Institute it can take 7 to 13+ touches to generate sales- ready and qualified leads.^[2] As result, it’s critical to engage potential buyers with the right lead nurturing strategy in order to develop a relationship and maintain the project top of mind.

The results show that the average number of follow ups was just 1.86 follow ups per project, 32% of new projects never followed up at all, and that only 29% of real estate projects did 3 or more follow up attempts. The startling trend of few calls continued with the follow up attempts. A concerning 74% of projects never followed up with a call, only 6% of projects followed up with 2 or more call attempts, and the average number of follow up call attempts was just 0.35 calls per project.

Conclusion

The results from the study suggests that developers, homebuilders, and agents are currently falling short of best practices and could accelerate sales significantly through better homebuyer lead management. According to Research and Markets the real estate industry spent $30.4 billion dollars in 2019 in advertising across both online and offline channels.^[3] For most homebuyers buying a home is the largest purchase they ever make in their lives. Responding appropriately throughout the buying cycle is crucial to building trust and showcasing the brand of project and the team behind it. Therefore, improving the response times and nurturing homebuyers gives developers and homebuilders the opportunity to both generate a higher ROI on their marketing and sales investments and ultimately sell the whole project faster.

Gloho Marketing Automation

Learn how Gloho Marketing Automation accelerates sales for new construction projects.