April 2010 column for Builder & Developer magazine now online

My column for the April 2010 issue of Builder & Developer magazine is now online. In this issue, entitled "New Home Quality and Customer Service Improving in Recession," I wanted to review how builders have leveraged the downturn in volume to improve building quality, led by homebuilding giant Pulte Homes. You can read it by clicking here. An excerpt:

If there is one silver lining to be found from The Great Recession, it’s been the significant increase in both product quality and customer service from the nation’s largest home builders, which should position builders to grab market share from the existing home market in the years ahead. In fact, according to the 2009 New-Home Builder Customer Satisfaction Study by J.D. Power & Associates, overall customer satisfaction among 26,231 buyers of newly built homes averaged 811 on a 1,000-point scale, up by 32 points in 2008 (the survey can be found online at www.jdpower.com/Homes.)...