by Michele Gillis
Staff Writer
Going out of our region to bring buyers to Florida is a great way to ramp up the real estate business in Northeast Florida and several local communities are taking advantage of that.
ICI Homes, Riverwood by Del Webb, Sweetwater by Del Webb and Cascades at World Golf Village have participated in Live South Real Estate Shows that are held primarily in the Northeastern region of the U.S. and target retirees and active adults to move to southern states, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and even the Caribbean. Live South counsels prospective buyers on how to make the choice.
“They don’t tell you where to live, they are in business of helping buyers narrow down their choices,” said Rosy Messina, vice president of marketing and sales at ICI. “They tell them that they really need to go there for a weekend and live it if they can.”
ICI Homes recruits buyers to come to Jacksonville, Orlando and Daytona, areas where the builder has properties.
Messina said the prospective buyers pay $199 for a two-day, three-night “Discovery Weekend.” The prospective buyers travel to Florida and since ICI Homes doesn’t have a Jacksonville program in place just yet, the prospective buyers stay in an ICI property at Plantation Bay in Ormond Beach and travel to Northeast Florida to tour Amelia National and other communities that fit their needs, have lunch and play golf. With their package, prospective buyers get four vouchers to eat at the Plantation Bay Club and accommodations for their stay.
“Gated is important to some people and golf is important to others,” said Messina. “Walking trails is important to everybody. We usually lead with Palencia and Amelia National, just because those communities kind of fit the bill a little bit better. But, certainly Highland Glen, Tidewater or Palermo are a good fit for others. We have several communities to show them.”
The other local communities that participate in the Live South Real Estate Shows include Riverwood and Sweetwater by Del Webb and Cascades at World Golf Village.
All three communities have programs in place to bring active adult and retiree buyers in to Northeast Florida.
Pulte/Del Webb brings in potential buyers to see their active adult properties in Nocatee and Southside.
Jennifer Hendry, marketing coordinator for Pulte/Del Webb, said they go to the Live South Real Estate Shows to catch the active adults and retirees while they are still in their northern states before they’ve made a decision on where they want to move.
“If you reach them when they haven’t made a decision of where they want to move in Florida, the chance of them coming to Jacksonville, Ocala or wherever your community is, is much greater,” said Hendry.
Pulte/Del Webb, whose target market is the 55-and-older active adult, participated in the Live South Real Estate Shows for four years.
About a year ago, they formally introduced the “Explore Today” program to bring prospective buyers to the Jacksonville area to promote its two local communities here.
Prospective buyers who come to Jacksonville for Del Webb stay in a hotel nearby the community for two to four days and visit the community they are interested in.
Del Webb gets them a discount on the hotel and invites them to experience all the amenities and residential events happening at the community.
Currently, they have four houses under construction that will allow the guests to stay on-site and really experience the lifestyle of their communities.
When guests take part in the program, they have to come to the community and meet with a sales counselor to hear a presentation.
“This is to avoid those people who just want a cheap vacation,” said Hendry. “They have access to all of the amenities at Sweetwater by Del Webb while they are here. Riverwood by Del Webb’s clubhouse won’t be complete until June, but after that, when they come visit they will have access to all that as well.”
Hendry said they have several people coming for an Explore Today trip in the upcoming months and that the program is constantly updated with improvements.
“We look at the program and change it up,” said Hendry. “I would say 40-60 percent of the people who come for a visit purchase a home.”
Sweetwater only has about 100 carriage homes left, but Riverwood is a brand new community with readily available homes.
Del Webb is implementing a new program where they will have ambassadors, which are active residents of the communities, go out to eat with visiting guests or invite them to play golf or tennis during their stay.
“It’s like they have a friend while they are here for two or three days,” said Hendry.
Hendry said they enjoy going to the shows and forming those relationships with prospective buyers.
“We get a lot of interested people,” said Hendry. “People will go to those shows, but are not looking to move for two or three years. They go and get an idea of what they want. As they get closer to retirement, then they will plan trips to come down and visit.”
ICI Homes wants the prospective buyers to come and live the lifestyle for a few days.
“We are able to live outside 365 days a year in Florida,” she said. “That is such a nice sale. With Jacksonville, we promote that we has a great downtown, the ocean, Intracoastal, St. Augustine, Fernandina, medical facilities, major sports team and universities.”
Messina said about 25 percent of the people they speak with specifically want Jacksonville, 25 percent specifically want Orlando and the surrounding area and 50 percent want the Daytona and Ormond Beach areas.
ICI’s idea to go out and get buyers started about five years ago.
ICI had a property in Orlando and an ad agency recommended that they give the Live South Real Estate Show a shot. Messina said it went well and resulted in about six sales.
“We did it about five years ago and it was time to do it again,” said Messina. “We were finding that a lot of the buyers that were looking at Amelia National and Palencia were active adults or retirees that were coming from that Northeast corridor so it was just a good fit for us.”
Those who attend the Live South Real Estate Shows already are aware of what vendors will be there, it is just a matter of meeting the sales people in person and asking questions.
Part of the Live South package includes a lot of promotion before the show. They also advertise in RPI Media’s magazine, Ideal Living, which is sent out prior to each show.
Live South has a database of a quarter of a million people, so when they go into a city, they let everyone know they are coming and where the show will be.
Messina said there are usually about 1,200 people who attend a show and of that amount, they usually capture about 100-150 leads. The shows are usually two or three days.
“We work like crazy,” said Messina. “We are at a booth with about 30 other vendors who have properties between the beach and the Carolina’s. There are usually three of us who attend the show. We stand at the booth from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and tell our story.”
Messina and Lisa Egle, marketing manager of ICI Homes did five shows last year to bring buyers to Florida. They have traveled to areas such as New Jersey, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston and other northern areas.
Messina said it is usually about an 18-month turn-around before a decision is made from the buyer, so there haven’t been any sales as of yet since they started doing them in March of last year.
“Sometimes it takes people quite a while,” she said. “They are just on the beginning of their process to decide where they want to go. We work with Live South afterwards to create a database of people who may be interested in Florida. Sometimes it takes two or three trips to get people to commit. We understand it is an 18-month turn-around and we have to follow-up with people and see how it goes.”
Messina said that Florida is very attractive to active adults and retirees because of the taxes, weather and cost of living.
“We had very good results from the recent shows,” said Messina. “We brought several people down to see our properties for a Discovery Weekend. I’d say 30-35 of our stayplaces are booked until after Easter, which is double what we had last year.”
Messina said they are going to expand the Discovery Weekend to include a stay in the Jacksonville area at one of their properties.
Messina said the brutal winter in the Northeast helped them out.
“I’ve never seen so many people saying ‘This is it. This is my last year, I’m outta here.’ Between the taxes and the brutal weather we just had a really good season.”