With an increasing population, the demand for new homes has never been greater, but with new homes springing up left, right and centre, what does a potential purchaser base their buying decisions on?
- Budget and affordability
- Location and accessibility
- Size and functionality
- Resale value and investment potential
- Quality and warranties
- Energy efficiency and
- The opportunity to personalise the property.
But that’s rational thought, and very few people buy a house purely on logic. For many more it’s a feeling. And that’s where brand comes in. Brand can ‘give them the feels’ and set you apart in a crowded developer market.
Brand x Performance
The UK House Builders Q2 2025 Digital Marketing Benchmark demonstrates a clear link between brand visibility and performance. Leading housebuilder brands dominate universal search and domain authority, which in turn boosts their lead quality and acquisition efficiency. That’s pretty irrefutable proof of the powerful partnership between brand health and performance marketing. Simply put, housebuilders that anchor their marketing in strong, trustworthy branding (rather than relying purely on transactional tactics) will outperform the market and grow their businesses sustainably.
Building Your Brand
So how do building brands build their brands?
- Product & Physical Evidence
The product has to be right, it needs to be of a quality that purchasers can trust and your after-sales service needs to be customer-centric and live up to its promises. The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report (Feb 2024) highlighted that “poor outcomes for new homeowners” had become a worrying trend with persistent quality issues and unclear estate charges. The reputation of homebuilders is a decisive factor and underscores how brand and reputation directly impact buyer confidence and satisfaction.
Being able to use quality marks in your marketing like the New Homes Quality Code and guarantees like NHBC and Premier Guarantee all help to validate the quality of your product. Membership of bodies such as the Home Builders Federation also plays a supportive role, as do their star ratings.
Home purchasers are also increasingly influenced by homebuilders sustainability credentials which are reflected in BREEAM UK’s rebranded ‘New Construction: Residential’ (UKNCR) standard. The standard ‘offers a trusted, science-based, holistic assessment of a home’s sustainability, resilience, and quality, assuring homeowners, developers, and investors that properties meet top environmental and wellbeing standards and regulatory requirements through integrated sustainability.’
Benchmarks such as the NextGeneration list are recognising developers who are leading the sector on net-zero goals, providing another opportunity to elevate brand perception and build brand equity.
Independent reviews are vital in the recommendation economy. Given that a property is likely the biggest investment they’ll ever make, they will be doing their homework. Independent review sites like Trustpilot, industry specific ones like Homeviews and threads on platforms like Reddit, X and Facebook are all important validation points as to the perceived quality of your product and value of your brand. You need to be monitoring these and responding where appropriate to protect your brand reputation. Second-hand trust becomes an acquisition multiplier. - Promotion
Knowing your target customer is critical to pitching your promotional activities right. From your brand materials aesthetic to its messaging, to the channel by which you deliver it, your audience need to identify with it, relate to it and trust it enough to have their curiosity piqued to the point of arranging to view your showhome or the potential property they might be in the market for.
- People
Your people are the embodiment of your brand and need to be completely aligned with your company culture and values so that they can live that out when interacting with current, past and potential purchasers. From the friendly way they answer a call, to the efficient way they arrange a viewing, to their smile at greeting a scheduled viewing (or unexpected walk-in at 4:55 on a Friday!), to their professional and informed assistance in selecting finishes to personalise a property, to a snagging call for resolution… Every human touchpoint plays a vital role in the customers’ experience of your brand, how they perceive you and how their opinion will be shared with others. - Process
Whilst there are many moving parts involved in building and selling homes and the process doesn’t always run smoothly, providing clear guidance and managing expectations plays a major role in protecting your brand and its relationships with its customers.
Stronger brands deliver:
- Higher buyer trust and confidence, which results in faster decision making, brand advocacy and referrals, and
- Demand, which improves campaign efficiencies, reduces acquisition costs, reinforces value, improves pricing power and reduces the need to discount.
StrategiQ build brand equity for businesses looking to compete. Our work ensures that performance channels don’t just acquire leads, but convert to sales. If you’d like to discuss strengthening your brand please give us a shout, we’d love to help.