FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Markham, ON, January 8, 2009 – Constellation HomeBuilder Systems, the largest provider of homebuilding software, announces the availability of nine new homebuilding software technologies. Instead of cutting back on development, in a time when many homebuilding software companies are struggling to meet the most basic customer support requests, Constellation is taking this opportunity to increase its investment in new technology and solutions for home builders. “We are continuing to invest in new products and services for home builders and maintain our long-term commitment to the home building industry”, says Dexter Salna, President of Constellation HomeBuilder Systems. “As everyone knows, the home building industry and real estate in general are very cyclical and, as a result, there has been very little long term investment in software for homebuilders. The long-term stability of Constellation ensures that we will continue to support our customers and bring new solutions forward to help builders and land developers compete in any type of market condition.”

Constellation will be at the 2009 International Builders Show in Las Vegas, NV from January 20th-23rd 2009; booth #C4299. Please contact us to request an appointment, or visit our booth during the show. All of our new solutions will be available for demos and our product experts will be available for detailed discussions.

With Constellation, home builders have security and stability with their software investments and the comfort of knowing that they will be supported now and in the years to come. Our continuing investment in software for home builders and land developers will help Constellation customers manage costs more effectively and respond to changes more quickly in 2009 with the following new technologies and solutions.

Land Development

Constellation LandDev, an integrated web-based land development system designed exclusively for land developers with flexible “best practices” to automate workflow, reduce and control costs, view cash flow and job schedules, while at the same time automating many tasks that are now manually performed. LandDev includes a vendor portal and supports detailed and summary level budgeting, estimating, bidding, contracting, and payment processing with easy to manage security and approval settings.

Marketing and New Home Sales

Constellation CRM Marketing is an industry-proven new home sales and marketing system that enables you to capture all relevant customer information for targeted, customized campaign management. The hallmark of every great marketing strategy is to know and communicate effectively with your prospects. Who are they, individually or as a group? When, where and how are they likely to buy? With easy-to-use tools to help you ask the right questions, you’ll understand and meet your customers’ budget and lifestyle preferences every time. Stay ahead of the competition; improve productivity and profitability with personalized marketing campaigns to turn qualified leads into new homebuyers. This highly disciplined, flexible system gives you the unique ability to design, build and deliver buyer-qualified products with every home you build.

Design Center Upgrades and Options Selections

OnLocation-Design Center is an integrated mobile device software application that helps design center staff easily manage options, upgrades, and color selections while helping to maximize the amount of each sale. During option and upgrade selection appointments, sales staff can walk through available options and upgrades while keeping running totals and making suggestions within the home buyer’s budget. With fewer errors and no additional data entry, the sales documents and addendums are printed and signed immediately.

Executive Dashboards and Reporting

NEWSTAR Enterprise and FAST have been updated with enhanced executive dashboards and reporting functionality. With FOCUS and FAST Insight, managers, field staff, vendors, and other partners can have access to production and accounting information as needed. Key business indicators are visible in a graphical format with the ability to drill down and look at the data in additional detail when making critical decisions.

Accounting and Production System Enhancements

Constellation’s core products include home building accounting and production systems used by over 40% of the top 100 home building companies in North America and over 1,400 home builders in total. Our mission critical production and accounting systems include FAST, NEWSTAR, Builder 360, BuildSoft, Constellation CRM (formerly Computers for Tracts) and LandDev. We continue to support and enhance these systems with the latest regional and regulatory requirements and bring new functionality to each system to help our customers improve their core operations.

Field Scheduling and Quality Control

OnLocation-Construction Manager is the latest solution in the award winning software OnLocation family of mobile device applications for home builders. In addition to core scheduling functionality and payment approval, field staff and inspectors can easily identify and record quality issues at any point during the building cycle and beyond. Not only can vendor payment be withheld, but issues can be addressed easier and tracked over periods of time. Using the camera capabilities of many mobile devices, you can capture photos from the field and automatically categorize them within the system. Once they are in the system, they can easily be made available for all employees and distributed to managers, vendors, and home buyers as necessary. The photos and easy identification of quality issues becomes a key tool in supplier and trade negotiations.

Warranty and Homeowner Expectation Management: Driving Referral Sales

Constellation BuildSERV – Ownership Guide is a hosted web portal and e-mail service for the delivery of home care and warranty information to new home buyers. Multiple touch-point communication tools help you track responses and reinforce your warranty and customer service standards. Integrated lead referral programs offered during and after the warranty period will help you drive referral sales.

Home Owner Portal and Customer Self-Serve

Constellation HomePlate is a home owner web portal designed to enhance the home owner experience by providing 24/7 Internet access to construction schedules, warranty requests, and home purchase information from contract to warranty. It’s designed to deliver instant information to your customers anytime, anywhere, without phone calls or phone staff. HomePlate is easily customized to match your website and data flows seamlessly between your production system and the HomePlate website.

Database and Technology Flexibility

NEWSTAR Enterprise, FAST, Builder 360 and Constellation CRM all operate on Microsoft SQL, which is essentially becoming the industry standard database technology. Microsoft SQL, familiar to many home building professionals, provides self-tuning for database performance, replication built-in for faster and easier reporting, more security with failover clustering, and enhanced automated out-of-the-box scheduling and alert services.

About Constellation HomeBuilder Systems

As the largest home building software company in the industry, Constellation HomeBuilder Systems has helped more than 1,400 builders manage their information technology costs with integrated software solutions to run their business from dirt to warranty. From planning to homeowner services, we have land development software, new home sales and marketing software, production, purchasing, scheduling, accounting,
warranty, electronic homeowner manuals, and vendor portal solutions designed exclusively for the home building industry.

Media Inquiries

Cathy Kotsopoulos

ckotsopoulos@constellationhb.com

(888) 723-2222

The most recent edition of Green Builder Magazine has an interesting article about Constellation BuildSERV and its ability to help builders better manage home owner warranty and service.  With electronic media, e-mail communication, and internet websites, builders can provide better information related to warranty guidelines and home maintenance.  BuildSERV helps builders communicate with new home buyers as generation X, Y and millennials would expect.

“Homeowners using a web-based portal to access information reduces the need for a paper manual and the related environmental costs,” says Brad Brickman. “The exciting story is our ability to use the web and e-mail to build an ongoing relationship with the homeowner – to update and deliver maintenance and product information on the specific products in their home.”

The full article can be found on page 42 of the December 2008 issue.

It can be downloaded from the following location.

http://www.greenbuildermag.com/files/current_issue/gbm_122008.pdf

As you prepare and finalize your budgets for 2009, we wanted you to be aware of the following solutions that we have enhanced or released in the previous year.

We are also announcing an exciting 30-minute webinar series that can help you with the following:

• Reduce production costs
• Improve management insight
• Build stronger customer relationships
• Work more efficiently with suppliers and trades
• Maximize upgrades on each sale

Sales and Home Buyer Solutions

Constellation BuildSERV’s hosted document library and online collaboration systems help builders manage home ownership documents and related warranty information. Our comprehensive services ease the task of organizing and compiling home ownership guides, and provide a method for delivering and tracking important buyer communications.


– Tues. Nov. 11 @ 2PM EST

Constellation HomePlate – Home Buyer Portal

Constellation HomePlate offers home builders a secure, web-based portal for their homebuyers and homeowners from contract to post-warranty. It’s designed to deliver instant information to your customers anytime, anywhere.


– Mon. Nov. 24 @ 2PM EST

Constellation Online Virtual Showroom

Constellation Online Virtual Showroom is a web-based lead generation tool that creates qualified prospects through unique visualization technology. Visitors to your website can mix and match exterior and interior colors and materials and see their choices instantly rendered on photographs of your model homes.


– Tues. Nov. 25 @ 2PM EST

Constellation CRM

Constellation CRM is a comprehensive suite of customer relationship management solutions for all sizes of home builders. Designed to help improve customer communication, options selection, and upgrade sales, now is the perfect time to take a look at Constellation CRM.


– Tues. Nov. 18 @ 2PM EST

FAST E-Leads and FAST Sales

FAST SALES and FAST E-Leads arms your sales team with the advantage they need to close the sale. FASTSales helps you streamline your sales process by automating follow-up and leveraging process-based workflow. With every sale a precious commodity you need a sales system that provides flexibility while maintaining accountability, that is FASTSales.


– Thurs. Nov. 20 @ 2PM EST

Constellation CRM Design Center

Constellation CRM Design Center provides your design staff with the tools to quickly, accurately and profitably prepare complex measured goods configurations, such as flooring or custom countertops. If you are looking to maximize the profits from your dedicated Design Center, now is the time to consider Constellation CRM Design Center.


– Wed. Nov. 12 @ 2PM EST

Construction Management and Communication Solutions

Constellation FOCUS is an integrated, web-based Business Intelligence (BI) solution designed to improve business performance through monitoring and proactive exception-based reporting. FOCUS can easily distribute pre-configured reports and notifications to suppliers, managers, employees and other business partners.


– Wed. Nov. 19 @ 2PM EST

FAST Insight

FAST Insight helps you to make the critical business decisions necessary in today’s economy on a daily basis, FASTInsight provides dashboard level views and detailed decision support in real-time so you can make those decisions with confidence. Know in an instant your financial and operational health with FASTInsight.


– Fri. Nov. 21 @ 12PM EST

Builder 360 – JobView 360

JobView 360 is a secure web-based project management solution designed exclusively for home builders to powerfully advance the flow of communication and develop reliable, partnerships between trade partners, subcontractors, and homebuilder employees.


– Mon. Nov. 17 @ 2PM EST

Constellation LandDev

Constellation LandDev supports detailed and summary level budgeting, estimating, bidding, contracting, and payment processing with user configured authorization processes. Find mistakes on paper before they happen in the field and become too expensive or too late to fix. LandDev allows users to eliminate the paper chase with workflow technology that sends e-mail messages to targeted individuals for budget approval, change order approval, payment approval and notification, as required, leading to an unprecedented control of cost and schedules.


– Mon. Nov. 10 @ 2PM EST

OnLocation-Schedule

OnLocation-Schedule is an award-winning, fully-integrated, wireless software application designed to meet the needs of field staff, home builders and suppliers. This easy-to-use application offers effortless monitoring and tight control of construction schedules and payment processes, while improving the efficiency of supplier communications.


– Thurs. Nov. 13 @ 2PM EST

PocketFAST

PocketFAST works seamlessly with your FAST schedules to extend the benefits of an integrated management system to your production line. Field managers and vendors will be more efficient, more effective, and more accurate with PocketFAST, providing essential, time sensitive information throughout your organization, as it happens. That’s what you should expect with an enterprise system, and PocketFAST delivers.


– Thurs. Nov. 13 @ 2PM EST

Constellation BuildPro

Constellation BuildPro is the leading, integrated, scheduling and vendor collaboration system utilized by home builders to effectively manage tight construction schedules and improve homebuilding efficiency. Over 10,000 builders and suppliers are using BuildPro and SupplyPro to help build thousands of homes more efficiently, communicate more effectively, and build stronger trade relationships. As an internet solution, the system is always available in the office, at home, or in the field.


– Fri. Nov. 21 @ 2PM EST

New Product Preview

OnLocation-ConstructionManager allows you to schedule jobs, control payments, control production quality, and communicate with trades. With real-time exception control and quality monitoring, you can identify quality issues before it’s too late or too expensive. Your superintendents and quality control staff can quickly run though a checklist and identify problems. Not only are the problems identified and stored in NEWSTAR Enterprise, but you can take photos with your mobile device for management oversight and supplier communications. These photos serve as a record of deficiencies for suppliers and trades and ensure that everyone has the ability to see problems when they occur.


– Thurs. Nov. 20 @ 2PM EST

OnLocation-DesignCenter

OnLocation-DesignCenter is an integrated software application that helps design center staff easily manage options, upgrades, and color selections and maximize home builder design center profitability. Using a barcode scanner, options, upgrades, and colors are easily captured and recorded in NEWSTAR Sales. From there, design center staff quickly generates the contract addendum and present it to the customer for approval. Design center staff no longer need to waste time keying product codes into the system while the customer waits.


– Fri. Nov. 14 @ 2PM EST

Additional Information

If you have any additional questions, please contact Cathy Kotsopoulos at (888) 723-2222 or via e-mail at ckotsopoulos@constellationhb.com.

On Tuesday, October 7, 2008, Constellation CRM is pleased to invite you and your staff to our one-day Regional User Conference at the Hilton Suites in Anaheim, CA.

The agenda is the following:

Click here to register or obtain additional information.

Constellation Online Virtual Showroom is a web-based lead generation tool that helps educate your website visitors with interactive images of your homes.

Your potential homebuyers can see how your models and rooms look with different colors and finishes.

For more information and a demo, visit the Constellation Virtual Online Showroom.

 Here is my favourite picture.  What does your home look like?

The problems and frustrations in most builder/realtor relationships can be traced back to a few basic reasons. Here are the top four and how to resolve them.

Reason # 1 – Unrealistic expectations
Each party brings with them their own set of expectations. These expectations will remain hidden until they are revealed during the relationship, then it can be a big problem to overcome. One side is going to accuse the other of being unreasonable, or having unrealistic expectations.

Solution:
Create a written list of what you expect your realtor to do for you. What seems obvious to you may not be obvious to your realtor. Share this list with all the realtors you are considering.

Once you have decided on a realtor have them go through the process of defining their expectations of you. I promise you that this will be a new exercise for them.

With both parties having fully disclosed their expectations of the other it’s just a matter of agreeing to those expectations. When frustrations come up in the relationship, which they always will, all either party has to do is to remind the other what they had agreed to in the beginning.

Reason # 2 – Lack of Training
A new home realtor should have a good working knowledge of how a house is constructed. They should know how to handle the most common buyer objections. They should know about financing and the loan process. They should know the area where they are selling, the schools, shopping, restaurants, entertainment, and employment. They should be very familiar with the neighborhood restrictive covenants and have a copy in their briefcase to answer any questions that may come up during the showing. They should have a grasp of current economic conditions and be able to answer objections that may be based on the economy. Most importantly they should know the builder they are representing and they should know his or her product.

Solution:
During the interview process ask some probing questions. Find out if they know the things you believe they should know. If not, create a simple training program. All you need are a few good books and the willingness to follow-up and make sure that they have learned the things they agreed to. Train them on how you do business and how you build a house. Take them on a two to three hour orientation of one of your completed homes and go over every detail of the house, including attic and crawl space. Later on send in some undercover testers to ask questions and see if they can answer correctly. They are representing your product. Make sure they know what they are talking about and have been trained how to sell it.

Reason # 3 – Lack of Communication
I have gone weeks without hearing from my realtor. When I finally call them they tell me that they had nothing new to report so they didn’t see any reason to bother me. If there is nothing new to report then we have a problem that we need to be discussing and figuring out a solution for.
By the same token, I have had things going on in my business that affected my realtor, but I neglected to inform them. It simply slipped my mind.

Solution:
Schedule a weekly meeting and make that meeting a priority. Each party should come to the meeting with their own pre-written agenda. This ensures that all important topics are covered and communication does not break down in either direction.

Reason # 4 – The Realtor is Not Involved in the Decisions
If you’ve worked with realtors then you’ve heard the many reasons given for a house not selling. Too much color, not enough color, wrong kind of carpet, master bed room too small, bad lot, poor kitchen lay out, on and on. It’s never the marketing.

Solution:
Get the realtor involved in all the decisions. Let them help pick the floor plans, the colors, the carpet, the counters, the lights, etc. You may be thinking that your decorator can do a better job of that than your realtor but if you have an experienced, successful realtor who has been around for a while they probably have a better handle on what customers are looking for than your decorator does. At the very least, have your realtor approve the selections.
Not only does this remove most all of the excuses but what you will find (if you have a good realtor) is that their opinions were actually right on the money. Most likely you will find your sales volume increasing and days on the market decreasing.

About the Featured Author:
Tim Davis is the founder of The Builder’s Coach, a national coaching and consulting firm designed to assist small to mid sized builders with back-office management and marketing solutions. Tim is a published author, a speaker at the national level of the NAHB, has been a successful home builder for the past twenty years, and is also a licensed realtor. Visit The Builder’s Coach for more information and some free, but valuable downloads.