More House Plans Don't Always Mean More Buyer Choice
It’s easy to assume that more floor plans mean more buyer choice. But not necessarily.
If you have eight plans and five are roughly the same size, aimed at the same household and solving the same need, you may technically offer eight choices.
But to the buyer, it may feel more like three.
When More Plans Start to Look the Same
We see this happen when production home product lines expand over time. A new plan gets added to fill a gap. Then another. Then another.
Before you know it, the plan mix has completely changed. But even with more plans, there can sometimes be very little little floor plan differentiation.
When this happens, it can become hard to explain what role each plan plays.
So How Many Production Home Plans Should You Offer?
There isn’t one right number.
The better question is whether every plan gives the buyer a meaningful reason to choose it.
Who is it for?
What does it offer that the plan beside it doesn’t?
Maybe one works better for multigenerational living. Maybe another has a stronger indoor-outdoor connection. One is deliberately compact and another gives the buyer much better work-from-home space.
Those are significant and meaningful differences.
Small changes in room dimensions may not be different enough.
Can Your Sales Team Explain the Difference?
If your sales team struggles to explain the difference between two plans, chances are the buyer will too.
That can be a good indication that the plans themselves may not be different enough.
Sometimes the answer isn’t adding more choice. It’s creating more distinction between the plans you already have. Your product line might be smaller in size but significantly different from plan to plan.
Remember - a strong product line isn’t necessarily the one with the most plans. It’s the one where every plan has a clear reason to be there.
How Differentiated Is Your Current Product Line?
Take the Product Line Test to see where your current lineup may have opportunities for improvement.