Now back to your question, why do we like working with Lennar, the short answer is it all starts at the top. The President: We not only show our customers Lennar homes, but we also make purchasing decisions for a property investment firm which has recently chosen Lennar as its preferred new construction builder. We took the time to meet Matt Devereaux, Division President for Lennar. First he readily accepted our invitation to meet with him. As you can imagine, someone who hand signs every thank you letter to his customers would be the type of person to openly meet and discuss Lennar products, strategy, and personal philosophy. We also fully realize that if you have a quality person with the proper level of knowledge and experience to lead, then it is likely the rest of the company will follow suit, which in our experience is the case with the Lennar team. The Products: Lennar is a value builder, but we want to be very careful how we state that. In some people’s eyes “value” can mean cheap. That is exactly opposite of what we think value is. To us value means you get a very well built, very well upgraded home at an affordable price. The new construction industry is infamous for advertising low pricing and then showing you model homes with a lot of upgrades, so you end up spending tens of thousands of dollars more than you originally intended to. Lennar has greatly minimized the bait and switch feel of new construction home buying with its Everything Included (EI) philosophy. Basically what that means is in communities like Palencia our customers do not pay extra for crown molding, quartz counters, 5 inch base boards, screened lanais, paved driveways, paved lanais, led lighting, high tech controls, appliances and the list goes on. We think it’s a better way of doing business. Plus Lennar also completes many homes before they are sold (known as spec homes), which lets our customers see exactly what they are buying. We do like working with other builders as well when it comes to spec homes: our customers know what they are purchasing upfront, no surprises. But we definitely have to go the extra mile with other builders when it comes to “to-be-built homes” to ensure our customers get what they think they are buying. This extra effort is especially important not only inside the house on a to-be-built home but it’s also critical with the lot. We never stop saying: you can always remodel a home but you can never change a lot. What Lennar is not is a custom builder, for that need we would have to bring our customer to another builder. Custom builders have their niche of course, we couldn’t really classify any custom builder as a value builder, but we do work with buyers who want everything to be exactly as they want it, personalized, that takes a custom builder and that does drive up the homes cost significantly. The Employees: Lennar’s philosophy embraces the team approach, customer care specialists, warranty staff, preferred lending personnel and title companies, site agents (sales people who are the customer’s first contact and remain so throughout the process), sales managers working in tandem with site agents and a director of sales and marketing like Matt Figlesthaler ( see photo) who we know we can count on if we need assistance in any way as he has gained our trust. Every time one of our customers signs on the dotted line
with a builder, we put our own reputation on the line, so we need to know we have support at the top of the organization should things not turn out perfectly. All builders will make some mistakes, the more homes you build the more likely something may go wrong, it is how it's fixed that really matters. Homes can be the biggest investment some people ever make, something that important has to be done right.
Thank you to our customers!
What are your goals for the upcoming year in Real Estate? We want to keep expanding our real estate businesses throughout St Johns county, focusing primarily on residential real estate as Broker Associates with Watson Realty Corp. at this time. We always like to ask our featured businesses this question: What is your favorite thing to do in St. Johns in your free time? We enjoy riding our bikes together and love dining out with the kids downtown in St Augustine. Kasia really enjoys outdoor trails and Mark loves to play golf (whenever Kasia lets him): Palencia, King & Bear and the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass are his favorite three. Having moved from Cape Cod to Florida 10 years ago now, we find St Augustine, where we live, to be uniquely different than the Cape yet remarkably the same, so it feels like we have never left our roots, it feels like home. Anything else you would like our readers to know about Team Kaprelian? We love reading St Johns Magazine!
Kasia and Mark with Matt Figlesthaler, Director of Sales and Marketing for Lennar. Photo taken at the Lennar Welcome Center in Palencia.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TEAM KAPRELIAN: KasiaAndMark.com Kasia@WatsonRealtyCorp.com MarkKaprelian@WatsonRealtyCorp.com Cell 508-333-1342 www.stjohnsmag.com
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