Coal Creek Ranch

The challenge

The developer, Community Holdings, wanted to create a suburban residential community bordering a new municipal golf course in a challenging economic time.

Louisville, Colorado was thought of as a bedroom community to Boulder and Denver. That’s a tough place to start, because a bedroom community is defined by what it’s near instead of what it is — which leaves you competing on commute time and price, and not much else, at exactly the moment money is tight.

So the question was whether this community could stand on its own with Boulder and Denver builders, brokers, and buyers.

What we did

Community Holdings retained our marketing and real estate companies to oversee Coal Creek Ranch.

We chose builders on three things. Financial capability, innovation with energy and water conservation, and home designs people would want. The first one matters enormously in a hard economy — one builder in trouble mid-project affects every other home in the community. The second was a deliberate bet that conservation could give this community a story of its own, well away from commute-and-price.

We built the campaign with partners who already had the audience. We ran promotional campaigns alongside major utilities and city administrators to reach home buyers looking for efficient homes. Utilities want efficient housing stock, they’re already talking to exactly the households we wanted, and they carry credibility on the subject that our own advertising never could. Get to know the utilities serving your project — their endorsement is worth more than a campaign making the same claim.

We made brokers part of the sales office. We invited real estate brokers to make Coal Creek Ranch their second office. A broker working out of your community learns the product, gets to know the builders, and brings their own clients with them. It costs commission and very little else.

The result

The strategy worked. Our marketing campaigns attracted qualified home buyers from throughout the entire Denver Metro Area — not merely from the Boulder commute shed the community had been assumed to serve. Our sales team provided top-notch customer service before, during, and after the sale.

By increasing the absorption rate, we reduced marketing expenses and returned more profit to the developer.

That connection is worth understanding, because it’s easy to miss under cost pressure. Marketing spend in a community runs on time, not on units — the sales office, the model homes, the staff, and the advertising all cost you every month whether anyone buys or not. Sell faster and you don’t just bring revenue forward. You remove months of fixed marketing cost entirely.

So when the market gets hard, look at absorption first. Spending on whatever moves it can shorten the period you have to spend anything at all.

What you can use

• Give your community a position of its own. Defined by what it’s near, you’ll always compete on price.
• Treat builder selection as risk management first, product selection second.
• Find partners who already have your audience and a reason to care. They’re cheaper and more credible than paid reach.
• Watch absorption and marketing cost together. Raising the first brings the second down.

Positioning a community? Call +1 303.500.3400 or send us a message.