As a building materials manufacturer, you’ve undoubtedly seen the growing opportunity to sell your products to multifamily homebuilders. If you’ve had issues understanding their needs, you’re not alone.
53% of All Housing is Multifamily
If you’ve had issues understanding their needs, you’re not alone. Understanding how to sell to the multi-family market can be a complex process. Their job is much more complex than you’d imagine and often requires a variety of special considerations and tools to perform.
Understand The Unique Needs of Multifamily
Multifamily housing is subject to a lot more government standards, restrictions, and laws than individual housing. For example, multifamily housing must meet all standards of the Fair Housing Act, including accessibility features.
Accessibility features include:
Easy access to public and common areas.
Doors wide enough to allow wheelchairs.
Light switches and electrical outlets placed in accessible locations.
Kitchen and bathrooms designed for easy access.
While these features are encouraged in a single family home, they aren’t dictated by law. After all, if a person in a wheelchair doesn’t live in an individual home, why build a ramp?
Multifamily housing builders don’t have that luxury. They have to install a ramp, even if no one in the building uses a wheelchair. Because, in the future, somebody COULD.
Accessibility is just one type of difference between a single and a multifamily builder. A multifamily builder is probably not building for himself, but for an investor. Because of these differences, you should rethink your how your product affects the multifamily builder.
Delivery: No Problem!
Unlike individual home builders, multifamily housing builders are often subject to unbreakable building time-frames that must be met.
In fact, heavy fines can be imposed on multifamily housing builders that don’t meet these deadlines. As a result, they need to streamline their building process as much as possible.
That’s why your local dealer or distributor is critical. They need to be as committed to the multifamily market as you are.
If you follow these tips, you should have little trouble gaining a foothold in this rapidly growing market. It may even cause your company to become THE go-to supplier for multifamily housing builders.
New Construction and Remodeling Opportunities
There are not only new construction projects, in multifamily, but there are also a large number of repair and remodel opportunities. A builder, architect or contractor may be the decision maker for a new construction project. For a remodel or repair, the facilities manager can be a decision maker or important influencer.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to grow your multifamily business, you should subscribe to this magazine and attend this event
If you need more encouragement, here’s another post on the importance of the multifamily market.
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Thanks for the following comments. I’d like to hear your feedback and suggestions on how to sell architects.
“Nice piece thank you for sharing”
Patrick Holoman
VICE PRESIDENT SALES
MacSouth Forest Products
