REMODELER SURVEY SERIES
Least Effective Marketing
Sources in 2012
Most Effective Marketing
Sources in 2012
26.4%
Yellow Pages
52.7%
Referrals
Newspapers
12.5%
11.7%
20.3%
Repeat business
Direct mail
Internet marketing
7.7%
Social media
8.3%
4.1%
Company signage
2.7%
Magazines
6.3%
Social media
Home shows
5.9%
Home shows
2.6%
Internet marketing
5.7%
Magazines
1.6%
Company signage
Referrals
4.7%
Newspapers
1.4%
Direct mail
3.8%
1.3%
Radio advertising
3.7%
Television
1.3%
Canvassing
3.7%
Radio advertising
1.2%
Canvassing
1.2%
An economic reversal would bring back
some of the problems we thought we had
made progress in resolving, such as the
number of distressed properties, Baker
notes. "If those [numbers of distressed
properties] start to climb again, it would
start to depress house prices; we'd start
cycling back down, and that would start
limiting mobility."
Television
3.3%
Repeat business
2.5%
Yellow Pages
1%
Billboards
2.1%
Billboards
Distressed Opportunities
.4%
have been seeing," Baker says.
"The recovery of the housing market,"
Baker continues, "is predicated on things
getting somewhat better in the broader
economy. I don't think we need to have an
unemployment rate of 5 percent; I don't
think we need to add 250,000 jobs a month;
and we don't need GDP growth of 4 to 5
percent to keep [the current trend] going
— but we need all of those to be at least
preceded by a plus sign rather than a negative sign."
Distressed properties, incidentally, represent
a significant potential for remodelers. "We've
estimated that close to $10,000 a unit is spent
on repairs and improvements to get those
homes back in the housing inventory," Baker
says, adding that in 2011 an estimated $10
billion was spent nationally renovating distressed properties.
Another bump in the road to recovery
may have to do with labor availability as
growth in home building and improvement
continues. "I do think that we're likely to
run into some labor issues fairly soon —
and probably earlier than we might have
expected. A lot of remodeling contractors
went out of business during the downturn,
but I think what happened is a lot of custom builders backfilled into the remodeling market. It didn't look like a labor shortage in any sense because we had those
builders going after some of the upper-end
remodeling projects. But I think they will
go back to new home building [as the market improves] because a lot of their competition went out of business. It's going to
be easier pickings for them back on the
home builder side."
Projected Number of Leads for 2013
30%
26.9%
25%
22.8%
20%
UP
15%
DOWN
13.3%
10.6%
10%
7.8%
5%
5%
1.8%
0%
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26
January 2013
QR
ForResidentialPros.com
1-5%
6-10%
6.4%
3.8%
11-15%
1.6%
16-20%
20+%