EDMONTON - Buyer satisfaction regarding new homes in the Edmonton market has increased since 2009, says the latest J.D. Power and Associates survey.
Overall new-homebuyer satisfaction increased to 711 on a 1,000-point scale, according to the 2011 Alberta New-Home Builder Customer Satisfaction Study.
That translates roughly to 71 per cent.
“That’s definitely a good score and we’ve seen continuous improvement in the Alberta market overall, both Edmonton and Calgary,” said Adrian Chung, senior manager of the real estate practice at J.D. Power and Associates, a marketing information services firm.
That’s up 63 points from the last survey in 2009, when overall satisfaction was only 648. That result was based on a survey from 2008, the first year J.D. Power surveyed the Alberta market.
“With that great increase, you can see there’s been a very serious focus by builders to try and improve the standards that they’re offering their customers in that space,” Chung said. “There’s been a very concentrated effort by builders to focus on customer service and satisfaction and understand what that means to their business and how that brings things like future sales and recommendations.”
The study measures buyer satisfaction with their purchase and early-ownership experiences in eight categories: service/warranty staff; sales process/staff; home readiness; construction/site team; workmanship/materials; price/value; physical design; and design process.
Price/value and home readiness were the biggest areas of improvement, Chung said.
Among Edmonton-region homebuyers, satisfaction with price improved to an average of 698 in 2011 from 577 in 2009.
“A lot of builders likely had to make some decisions around providing greater incentives to move their inventories,” Chung said.
Home readiness improved to an average of 718 in 2011, up from 633 in 2009.
More homebuyers reported their builder contacted them to find out if they were satisfied with their homes — 68 per cent compared to 60 per cent in 2009.
The average number of problems reported by Edmonton homebuyers after moving in was 14.6 problems per home in 2011, down from 20.5 faults per home.
Dolce Vita Homes ranked highest among the Edmonton-region builders that turned over 150 homes between January 2009 and June 2010. It had an overall satisfaction score of 791.
Homes by Avi followed with a score of 752 and Landmark Homes was third with 744.
The survey is based on responses from 6,229 Albertans who bought newly built single-family and single-detached homes.
Among “non-production” builders — below 150 possessions — the top highest-ranked firm was Cobblestone Master Builder Inc., followed by Jacob’s Construction Ltd., and Zetsen Master Builders Inc.
bmah@edmontonjournal.com
twitter.com/mahspace
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
Comments
Post a Comment