Fulton Homes Sells Houses Like Trousers, to Great Effect

In a lot of ways selling new homes is the same as selling men’s clothing or any other retail enterprise, says Dennis Webb, vice president of operations for Fulton Homes. “If the buyer wants it, give it to him,” said Webb. It’s a concept Ira and Douglas Fulton, founders of the Tempe, Ariz.–based builder, learned well when their business was selling clothes for big and tall men in Los Angeles more than a decade ago, Webb says. And it’s a concept that translates as well to selling houses. Staying customer-focused is what helped Fulton double its market share and rise to the top of the local market through bankruptcy reorganization and in one of the most dismal home selling markets in the country, company executives said. And business continues to get better. Fulton sold 70 houses in a recent five-week period. “While [other builders] are using a sticks and bricks approach, we are closer to our customers because we give them what they want, and make it easy to get there,” said Webb. An important piece of the company’s retail focus is a design center that offers buyers 6,000 different choices that they can preview online before visiting the design center itself. Fulton opened the design center in 2005 and kept it open even as other builders were shuttering theirs to cut costs.

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