Kaufman & Broad Sets Up House at Design Showroom
Row upon row of cookie-cutter homes may soon become a relic of the past.
Kaufman & Broad Home Corp., the Southland’s largest home builder, has opened its first design showroom in Southern California, an innovation that could make customizing new homes as easy as choosing automobile options.
Borrowing from other industries where customers can tailor autos, hamburgers, even computers to their own tastes, major home builders have turned to these showrooms as a home-selling tool.
“Almost every large builder in Southern California has their own design center or works with a design center,” said Randall Lewis, owner of Lewis Homes in Upland. “The more choices we give customers, the better off the customer is.”
At the Santa Ana showroom, shoppers can look over features and upgrades for homes ranging from $80,000 to $500,000 in price.
“Instead of us making selections for the buyer, we allow buyers to make decisions,” said Albert Praw, Kaufman & Broad’s senior vice president. “This allows customers to customize houses to the fullest extent.”
In the showroom, for example, customers can figure out the costs of adding fancier faucets or granite kitchen counter tops. They can add a basic fireplace, or use their money for higher-priced kitchen cabinets instead. Or they can just pocket the savings.
The company began extensively surveying consumer preferences after its 1996 acquisition of Rayco Ltd., an innovative home builder in Texas that had used these surveys extensively.
What Kaufman executives found surprised them.
They learned, for instance, that fireplaces weren’t as popular as they thought--fewer than 40% of Southern California home buyers said they wanted them. A majority of buyers also wanted 8-foot ceilings instead of cathedral ceilings. Now, they can order these features to their liking.
Kaufman & Broad has opened nine of these showrooms in Texas, Arizona and elsewhere in California. Others are scheduled to open in San Diego, Houston, Las Vegas and Tucson.
