Welcome New Members!

On behalf of the Membership Committee and Chair, Gus Rubio of Gabriel Builders, The HBA of Greenville would like to welcome our newest members.

WELCOME!

Affiliate members:

               Lowe's of Greer, Chris Angel

               Lowe's of Simpsonville,Rhonda Atkins

               Sexton Griffith Custom Builders, Chris Bagwell

               Lowe's of NW Greenville, Jason Baril

               Conservus Realty, LLC, Kathy Beckham

               Arbor Engineering, Inc., Caroline Bowles

               Allen Tate Realtors, Robby Brady

               The Collins Group, Kenny Collins

               Lowe's of Simpsonville, Monica Davis

               South State Bank, Karen Dey

               Guaranteed Supply, Jerry Dockery

               Fountain Inn Natural Gas, Ross Fletcher

               Allen Tate Realtors, Cathy Griffin

               The Collins Group, Elise Herron

               Lowe's of Easley, Lee Holcombe

               Fountain Inn Natural Gas, Kenny Jarrett

               Reliant Roofing and Restoration, LLC, Bill McDavid

               Daystar Construction, Olin McSherry

               Arthur Rutenberg Homes, Nichole Moore

               Allen Tate Realtors, Karl Morrissey

               Lowe's of Greer, Lance Pittman

              Allen Tate Realtors, Cynthia Serra

              Allen Tate Realtors, David Snyder

              Harrison Plaza Lighting dba Harrison Lighting, Mark Strange

              Lowe's of Simpsonville, Kevin Stredney

              Adams Homes, Nick Tsakanikas

              Ryan Homes, Amanda Vogan

              Lowe's of Easley, Don Wallace

              Lowe's of NW Greenville, Joel Warren

              Lowe's of Greenville, Lynn Wilson

 Associate Members:

          American Sand Products, Jehan Azad

          Reliant Roofing and Restoration, LLC,Walker Baldwin

          Lowe's of Greenville, Bryan Fischer

          Elliott Frazier Law Firm, LLC, Angela Frazier

          Guaranteed Supply, Jeff Horne

          RSVP Greenville, Greg Kilgore

          ReWiGo Ministries, Nick Kulick

          TD Bank, Ron McCoy

          Academy Mortgage Corporation, Cindy Mintz

          Lake Forest Flooring, Gregg Moore

          Mack Pest Eliminators, Tyler Moore

          Conservus Realty, LLC, Debra Owensby

          Greenville Tractor Company, Pat Poole

          Authorized Service Inc, Jerry Robbins 

          The Collins Group, Nathan Schaupp

          Signature LLC Pools & Patios, Craig Sikkelee

         Arbor Engineering, Inc., David Van De Water

         NextGen Technologies, Inc., Rusty Webb

Builder Members:

Truman Builders, Phil Gillespie

Daystar Construction, Lynn Wiley

Southern Home and Garden Show- March 6-8th! Booth space still available.

The Spring Southern Home and Garden Show is right around the corner, March 6-8th. Don't miss out on your opportunity to interact with your customer face to face and grow your business.
This show is going to be one of the biggest and promises diversity, make sure that you have your booth reserved as their are only about 10 booth spaces left.
Please contact the HBA office for more information at 864-254-0133.

The Ground Hog may have predicted 6 more weeks of winter but at Tuesday's annual Housing Market Forecast Luncheon predictions were more favorable.

Your HBA, SMC of the Upstate, Greater Greenville Association of Realtors (GGAR), and Upstate Mortgage Lenders Association (affiliate of MBAC) held The Housing Market Forecast Luncheon at TD Convention Center on Tuesday, February 3rd featuring Dr. David Crowe, Chief Economist for NAHB. Dr Crowe brought some very valuable information catering to our unique and growing area. Including this: Crowe predicted that single-family housing starts in the Greenville metro area would grow 17 percent this year, to 3,392. Crowe also mentioned that while Greenville's housing market still isn't back to normal following the Great Recession, it should get there over the next two years.

Dr. David Crowe is Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Dr. Crowe is responsible for NAHB's forecast of housing and economic trends, survey research and analysis of the home building industry and consumer preferences as well as micro economic analysis of government policies that affect housing. For more information on Dr. David Crowe click here.

Thank you to all that participated in this event. We would also like to thank our Presenting Sponsor The Greenville News and our table top sponsors:
All About Flooring
Clark's Termite and Pest Control
GBS Building Supply
Homestead at Hartness
Palmetto Exterminators
PestBan
The SMC of the Upstate. 

Also, a special thank you goes out to our Volunteers:

Anita Lebold- BankLine Mortgage Corp.

Beth Smith- Berkshire Hathaway Home Services

Bill Kane- Ryan Homes

Brittany Bailey - Ryan Homes

Deana Long- GBS Building Supply

Gary Cohen- Allen Tate Realtors

Haro Setian- The Haro Group of Keller Williams

Isabell Fleshman- Berkshire Hathaway Home Services

James Anderson- Park Sterling Bank

Kathy Weeks- Allen Tate Realtors

Nichole Moore- Arthur Rutenberg Homes

 We look forward to another great Housing Market Forecast Luncheon in 2016!

S.C. House introduces Business License Reform Legislation

Representative Rick Quinn (R), of Richland County, along with Reps. Merrill, Rivers, and Atwater, and 20 other co-sponsors, introduced H.3490 earlier this week. This bill is a top legislative priority for your Home Builders Association.  The purpose of the bill is to lower the paperwork and tax burden that local government places on businesses.

As introduced, this legislation would create a centralized collection system under the SC Department of Revenue, and bring South Carolina into the 21st century by allowing online payment of these fees. Additionally, the bill would change the payment structure from its current form. Businesses would be required to pay the business license fee only in the jurisdiction where the company's state income tax return is address, and the fee is capped at $100 per business. This would be a huge relief to businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions while also improving the ease of compliance.

Your Home Builders Association is currently working with the National Federation of Independent Business as well as other groups to push for this legislation. Our group is working on a study to demonstrate just how cumbersome and onerous this problem is for our members. It is our hope that this information will illustrate to the General Assembly the significance of this problem and the need for reform.

This is where you come in. If you have experienced difficulties with business license fees in your area, please feel free to send them to Matt Niehaus a mniehaus@hbaofsc.com. If you have any questions about this, or any other issue, please feel free to contact Matt.  You also can call him at 803-771-7408.

Read the media coverage of the legislation by clicking here.

Builder Breakfast! Rescheduled event- Thursday, March 12th

Attention all HBA of Greenville builder members, there will be a Builder Breakfast on Thursday, March 12th starting at 7:30 a.m. This event is hosted and sponsored by Jeff Lynch Appliance and T.V Center and our featured speaker will be Buddy Skinner, City of Greenville Codes Officer.
Don't miss out on the insider details from this meeting.
Please RSVP by Monday, March 9th. by calling the HBA office at 864-254-0133 or emailing Crystal Yanes.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Greater Greenville reaches 92 percent of normal

The National Assocaition of Home Builders released its Leading Markets Index this week, and the Greater Greenville market is now at 92 percent of normal.  LMI measures, and averages, three basic criteria: Permits, Housing Prices, and Employment.

According to the LMI for the fourth quarter of 2014, Greater Greenville breaks down as follows:

• Building Permits: 60 percent (the highest since 2008)
• Housing Prices: 121 percent
• Employment: 95 percent
• Overall: 92 percent

The Greater Greenville area is ranked 115 overall out of 351 markets nationwide.  The top market is Midland Texas at 239 percent of normal.  The bottom market is Flint Michigan at 61 percent of normal.

The Greater Greenville area is defined as Greenville, Pickens, and Laurens counties.

Other South Carolina markets are as follows:

• Spartanburg, 88 percent
• Columbia, 88 percent
• Charleston, 102 percent
• Myrtle Beach, 100 percent
• Charlotte, 85 percent
• Augusta, 98 percent
• Florence, 90 percent
• Sumter, 99 percent

To read the full report, click here.

Avoid These Deal-Breaking Mistakes

At a Jan. 22 International Builders’ Show seminar in Las Vegas, John Palumbo, CEO of The Sterling Group based in Jacksonville, Fla., provided several strategies to help builders to seal the deal more often than not by demonstrating the biggest and most common negotiation deal breakers:

No Differentiation. Most small builders are not doing research that shows why they are better than their competitors, said Palumbo. “If you do what everyone else is doing, you are missing sales.” One example he cited that makes a community stand out is a food truck that comes three days a week to serve the local residents.

Negotiating With Your Customers. “Consumers don’t like ‘aggressive’ salespeople but they love ‘assertive’ salespeople,” said Palumbo. The most successful are those who use information, charm and the power of persuasion to maximize sales. Make the customer feel like they made the right choice in their home purchase without being talked into it.

Treating All Sales the Same. Salespeople who sound automated and like they are reciting from a script come off as insincere to the customer. The most successful, he said, are “unsalespersons” who are spontaneous, casual, authentic and relaxed and who use their own words and stories. They are able to observe, uncover and predict their prospect’s behavior, thereby evoking emotion and communicating more effectively.

Not Using Third-Party Endorsements. Companies that properly use third-party endorsements can increase their sales by 25% to 30%, said Palumbo. When it comes to the bottom line, customers who have seen written correspondence, videos and social media endorsements are better positioned to buy your products with less negotiating and feel as though they have not been persuaded at all.

To make the endorsement process easy, ask a satisfied customer for a few short words or sentences on why they were happy with their home purchase and then write it up yourself and get it signed off by the customer.

Not Hypnotizing the Customer. Customers don’t want to be informed, they have already done their homework on the Internet. They want to be guided and given a reason to feel good about their purchase so that when they go home at night, they are thrilled about the decision they made earlier in the day with you.

Quitting too Soon. “Call me if you have any questions, here’s my card, let me grab a brochure.” These are all examples of salespeople who quit too soon and never make it across the finish line. Don’t throw in the towel on your next customer so soon. Do not let “feeling pushy” stop you from making one more call or letting your customer walk out the door without a contract in hand.

Being a Good Listener. The ability to interpret what you hear from the customer is vital. Most deal breakers occur because of a disconnect between what the customer is actually saying and what the salesperson thinks they are saying. By honing in on the customer’s needs and desires, you can use that information to initiate a solid purchase decision.

Verizon Discounts During the Month of February

Every quarter Verizon provides our members great deals on products and services. Here are some of the latest promotions available to you:

• Smartphone offers starting at $0.99 when you activate a two-year voice with data plan:
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (16GB) for $0.99
• Motorola Droid Maxx for $0.99
• HTC One (M8) and LG G3 for $99.99
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (16GB) and Motorola Droid Turbo (32GB) for $149.99.
• And several other Smartphones starting at $0.99. You can see the entire list here.

Bill Incentive Credits. $100 when you activate a 4G LTE smartphone or 3G iPhone 4S. (Credit applies to new two-year activation or renewal on $34.99 price plan or higher.)

Internet and Tablet Devices. Pricing from $29.99 to $299.99 (Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1) with new 2-year activation or eligible upgrades on $24.99 or higher plan.

For more details on these and other offers, click here.

These benefits are available to HBA members who have become complimentary members of National Purchasing Partners, a program endorsed by your Home Builders Association.  If you would like to discuss NPP membership, call 800.810.3909 or email customerservice@mynpp.com.