Building Homes for Real People

Building Homes for Real People

By Sharon Spinelli, Sales and Marketing Director, Robertson Homes

You know the best bit about being shortlisted in a wide range of award categories?  It shows that we are meeting our goal to create gorgeous homes for real people.

Real people; families, couples, solo purchasers and downsizers don’t come in brochure format. Like many of us, they store bikes in the garage and need sensible laundry space. They want room to cook and to play; easily wipeable surfaces for sticky fingers, and calm spaces to allow people do whatever they do to relax.

It is our great pride and pleasure to be already holders of the titles “Housebuilder of the Year*” , “Showhome of the Year*” and “ Best Small Family Home**”.

To add to that, we’ve just been shortlisted in no fewer than five categories for the Herald Property Awards 2019 - six, if you include our joint nomination with Interiors by Abode for “Interior Design Residential”.

To ultimately win them all would be nice but we are genuinely thrilled to be shortlisted as it shows we are at the top of our game all across the categories we serve.

Nomination also allows us to thank the staff who work so hard as a team to get every aspect right. From finding the right places to create small communities; to those who deal with the legal and financial aspects, and those who work together to create an appropriate mix of properties then plan the resources to start the build.

These are the unsung heroes, whose work is done before the first ground is broken.

Then there are the site managers, contractors and tradespeople who turn plans into reality, and who create the dwelling spaces that individual owners can turn into homes.

Interior designers, landscapers and painters add the final gloss but it takes a thousand different skills to create a home which thrills people – as well as one which is recognised for an award.

This year, we have introduced on some of our sites, calm spaces where potential buyers can relax and chat in peace; with things to amuse younger children while boring paperwork is reviewed, or where the choice of individual finishings for a home does not have to be rushed.

This too is important, since we recognise that we are not selling a commodity, we are helping build a lifestyle for our customers where things like reducing energy bills and availability of local transport can be as important as the number of bedrooms.

So we also act as information brokers and very often provide a listening ear to assist people in making one of the most important decisions of their lives.

Through all of this, we are only human and we will be at the Herald Property Awards again this year with fingers firmly crossed to be winners. But we are fortunate to be rewarded every day as we hand across the keys to someone’s dream home.

There is NO better feeling than that.