It's that time of year again -- when the Manitoba Home Builders' Association unleashes the Fall Parade of Homes on prospective home buyers.
As usual, there will be a bevy of incredible home designs to peruse during the Parade's three-week run (today through Oct. 9). However, unlike in years past, there will be a new tool available to take the public's home shopping experience to an unprecedented level of detail.
"As people know, there are just so many homes out there to go through during the Parade," says Mike Moore, president of the MHBA. "It's easy to miss key features, features that can mean the difference between choosing one home over another. We got to talking with the Free Press about how to make the Parade a more informative experience for home buyers. Eventually, an idea evolved."
The idea is at once simple and brilliant: to use web-based forums -- tweeting and blogging, to be precise -- as vehicles to provide the home-buying public with access to detailed information about show homes throughout the city.
"It's a new tool that will help home buyers make more informed decisions," says Colin Danielson, the Free Press's director of online business development. "A cross-section of people -- of all ages, single, with families, you name it -- will be tweeting and blogging about the different features of show homes entered in the Fall Parade all over the city. We think it's going to prove to be a very helpful tool."
Moore says it's a tool that, over time, should prove invaluable.
"Our hope is that it will provide a variety of different comments about each home entered in the Parade. Basically, if you're looking for a home, other people will be helping you out via the web," he explains. "It's a great way to collect additional information about features you might have missed during your visit."
Those little features, or nuances, adds Moore, are what make or break buying decisions.
"The positioning of a guest room, the way a back yard was landscaped, a cool faucet that just set off an ensuite, the way a mirror sits, positioning of a hall closet or even the flow to and from a certain room -- those are the things that can put a home over the top -- or not," he says. "Everyone catches important features. If you read about them online, you can then go back to a home during or after the Parade to see if they're a difference-maker for you."
Danielson says the forums will also be set up to be highly interactive.
"For example, a blogger will post their comments. After reading them, the public themselves can then make comments themselves. By doing that, they can ask questions and get more information about a home that might interest them," he says.
In fact, says Moore, it might be a home that a prospective buyer hadn't considered visiting -- until he or she read the blogger's post.
"The ability to share information is the key here," he says. "You can't possibly visit all the homes in the Parade, so if someone says, 'I visited this home and loved these design elements in the basement or kitchen,' you might want to go and have a look yourself. Who knows, it could turn out to be the perfect home for you."
Best of all, the blogs and tweets of certified visitors (chosen by the MHBA and Free Press) will be available in two locations: the Free Press's website at www.winnipegfreepress.com/paradeofhomes, and the MHBA's website at www.homebuilders.mb.ca.
"We think it's going to be a very positive tool," Moore says. "It will not only showcase our builders' wonderful homes, but will also help buyers -- hopefully -- find their dream home, even a decorating tip, appliance, flooring or counter top that will make a certain area of their home shine. By getting people talking and sharing information about homes in the Fall Parade, we hope to make their buying experience that much better."
lewys@mts.net
