WASHINGTON, D.C. – August 30, 2013 – (RealEstateRama) — Tracie Dollarhide, a new home sales agent with Jeff Benton Homes in Huntsville, Ala., recently became the 25,000th graduate of the National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) Certified New Home Sales Professional (CSP) program. The CSP program offers sales professionals a broad understanding of the new home building business, an overview of consumer psychology and proven advanced sales techniques used by real estate veterans.
Dollarhide hoped to expand her knowledge of the new home sales process in order to better serve her customers. “I am in a business where my customers view me as an expert, and, in order to be an expert, I have to constantly learn,” Dollarhide said. “The more knowledge I have about new home construction and sales, the more effective I can be, not only for my customer, but for my company as well. The CSP designation helped provide this for me.”
The CSP designation was the first designation available through NAHB’s Institute of Residential Marketing and was created for specialists in new home sales to enhance their professional image, increase their marketability in the home building industry and sell more homes. To become a CSP, individuals must complete NAHB’s comprehensive three-day New Home Sales Professional course, which is available in both a classroom setting and online. The course covers everything from qualifying prospective buyers and handling objections to basic new home financing and successful closing. To maintain their CSP and keep current with emerging trends in new home sales, they must earn continuing education credit hours every three years.
“The CSP program seeks to train sales and marketing professionals to be better at what they do, and in turn, they’ll provide better service to home buyers as they try to find the right home,” Meredith Oliver, CMP, CSP, Master CSP, MIRM, chair of the Institute of Residential Marketing and founder and president of Creating WOW Communications in Raleigh, N.C. “We are seeing increased interest in the program since we introduced the online course, plus the program was recently revised, so the content is fresh and in touch with today’s marketplace.”
For more information on the CSP designation, visit www.nahb.org/CSPinfo.
