Condo Media - April 2013 - 45

by William F. Pierce

“Selling” a Community to New Residents
One Association’s Success Story

he developer had sold the last
of its 1,863 homes in Heritage
Hunt, an active adult community for 55-plus-year-olds who had
responded to the invitation, to come
“Live Your Dream” at Heritage Hunt.
With the last sale, the developer began
the process of turning the community
over to the homeowners association.
With the last sale, the developer also
discontinued its extensive marketing of
Heritage Hunt. All that remained were
re-sales, the management and promotion of which was now our responsibility. We were like the dog that chased
cars and when he caught one asked,
“What do I do now?”
What the board of directors did was
create a Future Resident Task Force,
made up of current residents with a
mixture of skills, including planning,
promotion, marketing, real estate, communications, and education, to develop
techniques and strategies designed to
convince age-appropriate baby boomers
that Heritage Hunt should be their next
residence of choice.

“Future Resident
Task Force” Strategy

The task force initially decided it
needed to reach out to the real estate
community and make it easier to sell
homes in our community. Therefore,
one of the task force’s first actions was
to invite a focus group of realtors to
discuss what might be done to help
them sell properties in Heritage Hunt,
while, at the same time, encouraging
them to focus on potential buyers just
below the advertised minimum age
of 55, since the law allows up to 20
percent of residents in our community
to be 50-54.

Based on the realtors’ concerns and
suggestions, the task force asked the
board to relax the HOA’s polices on
when, where, and for how long Heritage Hunt approved “For Sale” signs
could be displayed by realtors. Heretofore, “For Sale” signs could only be
displayed on weekends. In addition,
they had a realtor-specific page added
to the community’s website and created a weekly description of all properties for sale in the community, including the name of the listing office and
the realtor’s name and contact information. They also created an accompanying map showing the location of each
resale home in the community.
The task force next turned its attention to the informational needs of potential residents. They created a “Live
Your Dream” two-pocket folder containing our logo and pertinent contact
information on the outside. The inside
pockets contain a selection of information items of interest to future residents
including a welcome letter from the
board of directors, a copy of our Washington Metropolitan Chapter Community Associations Institute (WMCCAI)
award-winning newsletter, a four-fold
brochure designed and printed by the
task force, a copy of a 2011 WMCCAI
article about our Association-of-theYear-winning community, information
about our WMCCAI award-winning
web page, a list of the 95 educational,
social, recreational, and game-related
clubs and activity groups, and selected
materials about our championship golf
course. These folders are given out at
the clubhouse to interested parties and
a copy is made available for display in
each of our resale residences. For additional information about living your

dream at Heritage Hunt, potential residents are directed to the website, www.
heritagehunt.org, and then are told to
click on the “Come Live Here” ribbon
for more helpful and very inclusive
information about our community.
To further promote the community,
the task force sponsored two Community Open Houses during which all the
amenities of the community were open
to potential buyers. Each listing realtor
was asked to open their homes that
day, resulting in 26 homes being open
for viewing during the first Community
Open House. Because of these activities, Heritage Hunt is now viewed as a
realtor-friendly community. As a result,
realtors, on their own, have organized a
brokers’ open house and five unified realtors’ open houses since last October.
The task force has embraced social media by recruiting a volunteer
resident social media manager to create
and manage a Facebook page and created broadcast e-mail programs, further
promoting our community to realtors
and potential residents.
These diverse efforts seem to be
paying dividends. As of this writing,
only 12 of our 1,863 homes are for sale
in Heritage Hunt, representing a .64
percent resale rate.
We appear to have answered the
question, “What do I do now?”. CM
William F. Pierce spent more than 40
years in state, federal, and national educational administration positions before
retiring and moving to Heritage Hunt
Homeowners Association Inc. eight years
ago. He is chair of the community’s Community Relations Committee. This article
is reprinted with the permission of QuorumTM, a publication of WMCCAI.
Condo Media • April 2013

http://www.heritagehunt.org http://www.heritagehunt.org

Condo Media - April 2013

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