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Lifestyle Homes Snapshot

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Company: Lifestyle Homes

Headquarters: Calgary, Alberta

Principal: Ron Bird, president

Employees: 30

Operations: Calgary, Okotoks, High River, Black Diamond, Strathmore and Elbow Valley

Market segments: First-time home buyers, empty nesters, move-up home buyers, and estates

Product: Single-Family attached and detached homes

2010 Closings: 59

2010 Revenues: $29.5 million

 

 

Take an HD Video Tour of a Lifestyle Home

 

 

 

As impossible as it is to be all things to all home buyers, Lifestyle Homes in Calgary is doing a good job at it. As a small builder, Lifestyle treats every home like a custom project — whether it’s a modest home for a first-time buyer or a million-dollar estate. Plus, the builder bends over backwards to help buyers arrange financing — which has been difficult for an increasing number of consumers in this economy.

Such personalized attention is a hallmark of Lifestyle Homes and home buyers have responded favorably, raving about the builder’s fine craftsmanship, impressive production schedule, and generous support during the entire building cycle. As a result, Lifestyle Homes has been recognized with an AVID Award for the best customer satisfaction in Alberta among builders with fewer than 50 closings.

According to survey respondents, the Calgary-based builder excelled in these five areas:

1. Time until closing (12.27 points above Canadian housing industry average)

2. Number of walk-through problems corrected (+9.34)

3. Heating/cooling features (+8.09)

4. Offered various mortgage options (+7.18)

5. Quality of walls (+5.19)

“Right from the outset, when Lifestyle Homes started building in the 1990s, we really focused on making the customers’ wants and desires in their new home a priority, not only for them but for us,” says Ron Bird, president. Unlike some production builders that frown on buyers making changes to the home’s structure, Lifestyle welcomes the opportunity to create the perfect home for each buyer, even if that means moving some walls around.

“With the exception of the entry-level housing product, Lifestyle Homes is truly a custom builder,” Bird says. “While the company has a portfolio of predesigned housing product, customers can make any changes they desire. We feel strongly that each individual purchaser should get what they want in their purchase, as buying a home is the single largest expenditure most consumers make.” Therefore, Lifestyle does not restrict customization to the upper end markets.

The company’s most affordable product line is priced from $300,000 to $350,000 and appeals to both first-time home buyers and empty-nesters. Approximately 20 percent of the Lifestyles revenues are derived from this segment, Bird says. The bulk of the company’s sales, however, come from the move-up market segment, with nearly 60 percent of the company’s revenues coming from homes priced in the $400,000 to $600,000 range. The company’s executive and estate homes comprise the remaining 20 percent are typically priced from $1 million to $2.5 million.

At every price point, Lifestyle tries to improve the customer experience, Bird says. To that end, the builder tracks new innovations and construction techniques in order to create homes that offer features and amenities that are important to today’s consumers.

This is especially useful when Lifestyle builds homes for immediate possession. By making sure that these homes include the best-selling designs and most-requested features, these ready-to-move-into homes meet most of the needs and wants of the typical buyer.

Quality Controls

Before customers take possession of their new home, Lifestyle conducts a pre-occupancy inspection. This usually occurs one week before the possession date, Bird says. “Any items that are identified as incomplete at that time are noted, and construction personnel attend to most if not all items prior to possession. The exceptions are seasonal deficiencies and items on back order,” he says.

In order to best prepare for this process with customers, Lifestyle employs the services of an independent qualified home inspector. Prior to the customer’s pre-possession walk-through, the inspector conducts a quality control inspection and notes any deficiencies in the homes. It is then Lifestyle’s construction personnel’s responsibility to address the noted items before the buyers do their walk-through.

“This independent inspector also accompanies the purchasers on their pre-possession walk-through, not only looking at completeness of the home but also acting as a resource to the customer, answering any questions that they might have,” Bird says.

Lifestyle also drives customer delight by listening to its buyers and responding quickly to any negative feedback. “We analyze every customer survey we get back, and if there are ratings that are not up to acceptable levels, those are the areas we delve into,” Bird says. “For example, if there’s a paint issue that arises on three or four surveys, we find out who the trade is that’s involved in that and address it right away so that the issue doesn’t continue.”

Customer Support

Because banks have tightened lending rules over the past few years, some home buyers struggle to find the financing they need. Lifestyle recognizes that one of the best ways to sell homes is to be a mortgage advisor for home buyers and help them line up the financing they need.

“Lifestyle has relationships with a number of different lenders — from the Canadian chartered banks through to independent financiers — who address the requirements of those who may have had personal credit issues or are not capable of meeting the more stringent credit criteria of the major institutions,” Bird says, adding that his company has aligned itself with a broad spectrum of lenders in order to provide the financing options available for each home buyer.

To show its desire to help its home buyers at every stage of home ownership, Lifestyle recently launched an interior design service. “That was an area that we found was lacking,” Bird says. “It’s an intimidating subject for a lot of home buyers — there are myriad choices and people are uncertain whether things will go together. We think it’s a valuable service, but we need to make sure our home buyers think it’s valuable. That’s the important part.”

Meanwhile, the company has also kept up with consumer trends by rebranding its Elements line of environmentally friendly homes, which are designed around four key components: earth, energy, air and water. The earth component takes into considerations such things as recycled materials, the energy component focuses on energy conservations and energy efficiency, the air component looks at ways to ensure the healthiest air quality inside the home, and the water component addresses both water quality and conservation, including the reuse of gray water for such tasks as irrigation and flushing toilets.

“Change is coming,” Bird says, referring to environmental issues. “Either you’re going to embrace it or it’s going to be legislated. We’d rather be at the forefront of it.”

That said, Bird doesn’t believe in forcing green technologies on home buyers. “The customer has to be convinced that they’re getting value for the dollar,” he explains. “One home buyer might focus on energy efficiency, whereas another party might be more focused on the use of recycled materials. What we try to do in each of these categories is offer people a number of choices and demonstrate the pay back period. We ask, ‘The fact that we incorporated this into the home today, is that going to add to the future resale value of the home?’ Ultimately, it's the consumer that has to make the determination of how green they want to go, but it’s up to us to offer that alternative to whatever degree they want.”