Cornerstones Homes is a residential development company based primarily in Richmond, VA. In 2002, the company decided to expand into the rapidly growing region of North Carolina known as the Research Triangle (the Cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill form a triangular metropolitan area).

The Challenge

As any developer knows, it is challenging enough to find and efficiently evaluate suitable parcels of land in areas that you are familiar with. These challenges are compounded when expanding into a new region where you don't know the territory very well. For Cornerstone, the situation was made even more difficult due to the fact that the land in and around the research triangle was being purchased rapidly, making it more difficult to evaluate whether a parcel of land was already slated for development, or was even zoned in a way that would allow for residential development.

The Search for a Solution

Custis Coleman, (Site Acquisition Manager for the firm) decided to investigate whether there might be any software systems that could help them be more efficient and effective in researching and evaluating prospective sites. "Prior tousing mPower, our process was typical of most developers", said Mr. Coleman. "We'd drive by a prospective site, then manually research the parcel, either by going to the Register of Deeds or looking it up on the County web site, only to find out it was either already owned, the building value was out of our price range, or some other condition existed to disqualify it.. I decided to try to find a better way". While attending the recent International Builder's Show in Orlando, Florida, Mr. Coleman got a brief overview of the mPower Land Acquisition System on the trade show floor. Intrigued, he requested a follow-up demonstration after the show and purchased the system a few weeks later. Mr. Coleman asked Seth Asbill (Site Acquisition Administrator for Cornerstone) to manage the implementation and utilization of the mPower system.

The Switch from Reactive to Proactive

With just a few hours of on-line web training from mPower, Mr. Asbill had the new system up and running within a couple days. "Since the mapping software and data layers are loaded on a hosted server, we didn't have to bother with supporting and managing the software in-house, making it easy to get up and running quickly", said Mr. Asbill. Cornerstone quickly confirmed the system was a quantum leap from the typical county parcel web site. The software gave them much greater power to proactively search for ideal acquisition candidates using multiple criteria (acreage, building value, zoning, land value, surrounding features). Using the software's easy to use sorts, queries and buffering tools, Seth was able to filter through exponentially more data in a fraction of the normal time, identifying many more highly qualified prospective sites. Describing a recent example, Mr Asbill states, "In the time it would take to find eight prospective sites using the tools available to me before, I was able to find over 170 different parcels that were of interest utilizing mPower's Land Acquisition Software".

The Result

By using the software's ability to both filter out disqualified parcels and zero in on parcels that meet their decision criteria, Cornerstone personnel are able to spend their time focusing on a much higher quality mix of prospective sites. Furthermore, the tool automates the process even further by allowing the user to easily merge data into standard software tools like Word® or Excel®. "After identifying the prospective sites, I can click a few buttons and the software automatically merges the owner information into our land owner prospect letter, making it very easy to recruit a larger number of prospective sellers". I've already gotten phone calls from a few owners," states Mr. Asbill a few days after sending the letter. Ultimately, the real payoff is how the software has enabled Cornerstone to make better informed decisions, beat competitors to the best land and contribute to the company's strategic growth. "Having many more developable tracts of land to evaluate and pursue greatly increases our probability of making a successful acquisition," attests Mr. Coleman.

LAND ACQUISITION SOFTWARE

• Quickly filter vast amounts of data into meaningful decision criteria

• Identify exponentially more suitable parcels for your next project

• Beat the other guys to the best land

"In the time it would take to find eight prospective sites, using the tools available to me before, I was able to find over 170 different parcels that were of interest utilizing mPower's Land Acquisition Software".

Seth Asbill
Cornerstone Homes, LLC
Site Acquisition Administrator

The Bottom Line

mPower Land Acquisition Software has enabled Cornerstone Homes to make better informed decisions, beat competitors to the best land and execute ideal acquisitions.

"Having many more developable tracts of land to evaluate and pursue greatly increases our probability of making a successful acquisition"