Unless you're strictly selling completed inventory ("spec") homes, your buyers are actually purchasing a mental image(s) of the completed home. In their minds, every­thing is perfect-just like in the magazines. What most buyers fail to appreciate is the impact an interior design professional had on the gorgeous roomscapes they've seen in print and on TV. Buyers can easily become over­whelmed by all of the selections they need to make; many doubt their own ability to coordinate everything; and most buyers just don't have the knowledge, talent, train­ing or imagination to optimize their spaces.  

Recognizing happy home buyers are essential to future referrals, some builders are working with local interior design professionals and are including a certain number of hours of the interior designer's time in the price of the home. On the low end, we're seeing four hours of interior design time included-which is often enough to assist buyers with color and some surface selections. More com­mon is the builder bundling eight to ten hours of interior design, which typically extends design services to lighting, plumbing and window fashions.