Better, Not Bigger

How to make a home more valuable without adding space

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With lot sizes shrinking nationwide, and many municipalities putting limits on house size, builders have to learn to think past the "bigger is better" mentality. There are some who think that's not necessarily a bad thing. "People do not buy a car based on a price per pound, so why should they value a house solely based on the price per square foot?" asks Gian Hasbrock, President of WOWISM, a Kill Devil Hills, N.C., marketing and sales consulting service for home builders, including production builders of less than 1,000 homes per year.

As the 2004 recipient of the Trina Ripley Excellence in Education award from the National Association of Home Builders' Institute of Residential Marketing (IRM), Hasbrock is an NAHB Master Instructor who has created courses such as "Effective Marketing on a Shoestring Budget." He believes that there are things a builder can do to raise a home's perceived value without increasing its footprint.

One great way for builders to add value to a home is to offer little enhancements aimed at the target demographic. "If you are building starter homes, having a built-in highchair that folds into a cabinet in the kitchen may be a terrific value for young families," Hasbrock says. "For the aging boomer market, raising the bathroom sink from 32 inches to 36 inches, as is standard in the kitchen, may get buyers to think, ‘Someone cares about me and doesn't want me to hurt my back.'"

Small unique touches, like putting a split vanity in the master bath, with one sink higher and one lower, can also go a long way towards showing customers that the builder knows how to look past the square-foot box. "You want to get credit for the things you do a little different, not for what you do the same as everyone else," says Hasbrouck. That could include calling a master bedroom suite an "Owner's Retreat," a tactic that lets you treat it with just a little more value. "Small kitchenettes or coffee centers are being included [in these areas]. They let the owners have a moment of peace in the morning before having to deal with the kids and the world."

Paying attention to national trends can also pay dividends for the builder. "Sixty percent of Americans have pets," Hasbrock says. So why not include touches aimed at pet owners? One builder he knows transformed the typically unusable space under a stair landing into a dog's room complete with bed, toys, food and dishes.

Some ways of adding value without adding space are a simple matter of thoughtful planning, such as using sight lines to connect key parts of the home. "People like to open up the front door and be able to see out to the backyard," says Hasbrock. Other possibilities include visually connecting "the kitchen sink to the hearth, the hearth to the front entrance and the front entrance to the top of the stairs." Hasbrock believes that the visual connections send a message that the home will promote family connections, an important value in most buyers' minds.

Hasbrock will present the IRM course, "Market-Focused Residential Design," in Nags Head, N.C., on Aug. 25, 2006. He can be reached at gian@wowism.com