Yay! The Sphere of Influence (SOI)-only "marketing" is working, slowly, as fully anticipated, but working! {bounce bounce bounce}
I have a friend and fellow H.O.G. member interested in purchasing a new build home. I'll call her Jane. She'll start looking probably early summer and she's now working on financing. She reached out to me because she heard I'm in the real estate business now. Sweeet. :0) While we've talked, we're not to the agency contract signing point yet and he might well decide to go with someone more experienced with new builds, but I'll certainly be doing my best to convince her to stick with me.
{Doing a Donkey impression: Pick me! Pick me!}
Jane has been through the process before, some years back she purchased a new build townhome which she has since sold. (That one sentence spawns so many questions that I hope to be able to ask them casually and not have her feel I'm waterboarding her or some such when we get together to talk more.) The closest I've gotten to a new build is when hubby and I were house-hunting in 2006 and we briefly considered the idea. The new homes in our desired area and price range were tiny, tiny, tiny so we quickly dropped the idea and stuck with "previously loved".
So, my potential client knows the process more intimately than do I at this point. She's aware of my newness, and I'll be working to close the knowledge gap as quickly as I can!
Yesterday I went to a local new home community, presented myself as a new associate broker with a potential client and talked with salespeople, toured some of their model homes, and left with some good 
if superficial information. (I certainly do not expect a builder's salesperson to divulge much to me, since if a buyer goes in without a buyer's agent the salesperson will stand to make much more off the deal, so superficial is essentially what I was expecting.) I plan to visit other communities, and to start digging for builder reputation, timeliness, terminology, and reviews on warranty repairs, etc..
The more I learn, the better for all of my future new build clients.
I'll be meeting with my mentor to pick her brain and she'd be helping me through the whole process, but I'm also interested in other opinions and brain dumps. The more the merrier. Variety in brains is the spice of breakfast, eh?
I'm also scouring the internet and compiling tips, hints, and thoughts about the new build purchase process. If you have any that you'd like to mention, go for it, please and thank you!
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To read what I've learned about new builds so far, please see my New Build Info for Newbies article.
Cross-posted from my SpinOneGroup.com blog, At Your Service.
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