Karl E. Case’s recent OP-ED piece in the New York Times offers a contrarian view from today’s headlines about the value of home ownership. He makes several good points about why home ownership still makes sense. A good read for builders and manufacturer’s of building materials.
A recent article in the WSJ shows how consumers are shifting their spending away from improving their homes to purchasing high tech toys. Retailers like Depot and Lowes can embrace this shift by featuring the growing number of technology products that they carry. There’s no reason for consumers only to think of Best Buy for technology. Perhaps a “Technology Days” promotion or even their own Geek Squad would gain these sales. They also should more actively reach out to early adopters of technology like the readers or Dwell and Wired magazines.
Home prices are down 60% in Las Vegas. There are 9,517 brand new unsold homes. 5,600 homes were repossessed in the first quarter of 2010. And yet builders are working on 1,100 more new homes and looking for land to build more! It makes no sense yet it’s happening. What are you doing as a building material manufacturer to be part of this opportunity? What other unlikely markets are showing activity? Read the whole story in the New York Times.
Total construction spending is down 25% to around of 8.5 billion dollars from the 2006 high of over 1.2 trillion. Now more than ever marketers need to fight for every sale. It’s a great time to be aggressive and grab market share. As the market turns up, those who play to win will find themselves in a much better position. You can read more about the effects of this downturn in the Wall Street Journal.
