Weiss Homes: Selling well

To look at the lovely, traditional-looking homes clustered along a tree-lined street close to downtown, it’s hard to believe that a little more than a year ago, most of them were still in the final stages of construction.

Today, less than a year after the last home was finished, Notre Dame Avenue Homes are completely sold out.

While that may not be the typical scenario for the rest of the housing market, for Dave Weiss, soft-spoken owner and CEO of Weiss Homes, it’s very much business as usual.

Possibly that has something to do with the fact that the company founded by Weiss’ father in 1967 knows a thing or two about the local housing market.

Always improving

Weiss Homes

“There is no such thing as one type of home that’s right for everybody,” says Weiss (rhymes with peace). “We try to build what the homebuyers want, where they want it, for what they can afford.”

Weiss Homes makes it a practice to survey customers on a regular basis to assess their feelings about a range of experiences including the process itself, the closing procedures, appliances and materials used in the home, and “how the house is living for them,” in the words of Kym Baker, the company’s energetic vice president of sales and marketing.

“When you stop getting better, you stop being good,” Baker says. “You always have to be improving.”

That means, for example, that over the years Weiss has discovered that homeowners are willing to sacrifice a few square feet of bedroom space in order to accommodate large walk-in closets. All Weiss homes feature abundant closet space.

Other prominent features in Weiss homes based on information gleaned from customer surveys:

• Larger “drop zones” by the back door with extra outlets for recharging phones and other electronic appliances dropped down on entering the house

• Computer alcoves in the kitchen area

“Our best designs are the ones that I’ve tweaked based on feedback from customers,” Weiss says.

What’s next?

Weiss Homes

Since the Notre Dame Avenue Homes have already sold out, Weiss is already thinking ahead to what he’d like to do next.

“We hope to be involved with some of South Bend’s plans for redevelopment,” Weiss says. “A lot of people really don’t want to live in outlying areas; they like to be able to walk to work and downtown.

“People think I’m nuts,” he continues, “but I think that ultimately there’s going to be a housing shortage. It won’t happen all at once. But unlike other cities, we were never overproduced here in South Bend, and you can only live in a small apartment for so long.”

When that happens, Weiss would like to do more infill in downtown South Bend.

“We’re still selling homes,” Weiss says. “No matter what the news says, there are people buying new homes.”

To find out more about Weiss Homes, go to www.weisshomes.com.