About the Project
St. Thomas Walk is an upscale townhouse development in Waterdown, Ontario, an hour outside of Toronto, perfect for anyone seeking a lifestyle of convenience, luxurious living and small town charm.
St. Thomas Walk’s townhouses offer highly desirable features including huge back yards with large overlooking windows, large kitchen pantries and walk-in closets, and high quality finishes.
The Challenge
Despite these winning features, there was a major challenge – these townhomes were simply not selling. Chelten Homes, the developer, contacted Invent Dev for a solution.
Why Were Units Not Selling?
The major contributing factor to the slow sales was Chelten Homes were significantly more expensive to competitive development projects nearby. Prospective buyers could not fully appreciate St. Thomas Walk’s luxury offerings and had difficulty justifying the price when there were less expensive offerings nearby.
Before Invent Dev joined the project, Chelten Homes already commissioned extensive marketing for this project. Unfortunately, the existing marketing materials were not producing the results they had hoped.
Possible Strategies to Increase Sales
Lower the Price: Some developers would resort to dropping the price, but this would undersell the luxury of these Townhomes. Even worse, lowering the price sends the wrong message to people who have already purchased a unit and encourages buyers to view these Townhomes solely based on price, rather than the luxury homes they were purchasing.
For these reasons, lowering price was out of the question.
Construct Physical Model Suites:The traditional approach to allow people to understand the layout and design is to build physical model suites or, at a minimum, representative kitchens.
Physical model suites was again the wrong solution. At a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, building a model home was too expensive. Additionally, the sales centre was located on the main street of downtown Waterdown in an existing building, so there was no space to build anything physical.
The Invent Dev Solution: Invent Dev Virtual Model Suites
Invent Dev Virtual Model Suites, like their physical cousins, allow buyers to visualize and experience the form, function and design of floorplans. Often though, Invent Dev Virtual Model Suites are a more powerful sales tool than physical model suites both for buyers and developers.
For example, Invent Dev Virtual Model Suites allow the buyer experience and interact with their townhouse in a way that even a physical suite cannot. For instance, Invent Dev Virtual Model Suites show different finish and upgrade options instantly, allowing the buyer to experience their home exactly how they want it.
Buyers of St. Thomas Walk Townhomes were able to experience, through their large overlooking windows in Invent Dev suites, views of their huge backyard. Buyers could also experience their townhomes from anywhere–online, on mobile devices, touch-screens, in virtual reality, and so on–allowing them to carry this experience with them wherever they went. Buyers are more willing to pay for luxury when they can freely experience it.
In addition, Invent Dev Virtual Model Suites offer incredible advantages for the developer. At a fraction of the price of physical model suites, developers have the ability to showcase more floor plan options. Invent Dev suites can also be created much faster for earlier pre-sales.
Because Invent Dev suites are not physical, they can be experience in any sales centre, real estate office, and on screens as small as cell phones to as large as 30-foot projector screens. This gives developers flexibility to place their sale centre anywhere and keep their sales process truly environmentally friendly. The Solution
The Solution
Virtual Model Suites that Engage Buyers: The Invent Dev virtual model suites allowed buyers fully experience life in a St. Thomas Walk townhome.
Prospective buyers could walk around and explore the form, function and design of the available floorplans in rich detail from anywhere, anytime – including online, on mobile/tablet devices, touchscreens and in mobile virtual reality (VR).
Buyers could also experience the unique features of the project. For example, they were able to walk into a fully stocked kitchen pantry and walk-in closet, view the trees blowing in the wind in their huge back yard, view the quality finishes and workmanship close-up.
In fact, every detail, including the finishes, faucets, mill work, flooring, vanities, and so on was created in photo-realistic detail and allowed the buyer truly live their St. Thomas Walk experience.
Delivery: Invent Dev installed the Virtual Model Suites at the sales centre on Valentine’s Day, 2016. Despite the frigid weather we had a busy stream of people on the re-launch, as people were eager to experience the virtual model suites at St. Thomas Walk.
The Result
When people were able to truly visualize life at St. Thomas Walk, they were willing to pay a premium for the right townhome. As a result, with the launch of the Invent Dev virtual model suite, the entire development sold out in less than 6 weeks.
The Numbers
With the launch of the Invent Dev virtual model suite, the entire development sold out in less than 6 weeks.
These number showcase the power of Invent Dev’s solution. First, the Worthington Floorpan, which hadn’t sold a single unit for months before Invent Dev was brought on, sold out completely in just a few weeks. The Sealey Floorplan sold out a couple of weeks later. In addition, other units which were not specifically modelled also sold within 6 weeks of the re-launch featuring Invent Dev’s Virtual Model Suites. This shows that buyers who experience their homes are more willing to pay for luxury and soon as they see it.
Summary
St. Thomas Walk is just one of many projects where Invent Dev’s virtual model suites helped sell-out a project quickly.
Invent Dev virtual model suites are effective because they allow buyers to get a true sense of what living at their new home would be like. Fundamentally, it helps the buyer understand what they are paying for.
For developers, Invent Dev model perfectly showcases luxury and premium features on offer causing people to buy. The truth is majority of people are willing to pay a higher price for the perfect home. At Invent Dev, we help our buyers experience this perfect home.
