Sustainable Competitive Advantage:
    A Cure for the Common Development

Reid Bryant

The volatile housing market has been addressed ad nauseam in the media over the last year or so. Everyone wants to know where to place the blame: irresponsible and unregulated lenders, homeowners buying more house than they could afford, or overzealous investors looking to make a quick dollar. Although certainly relevant, I don't find too much value in the blame game. I would rather focus on how to capitalize on a market in flux. Most experts believe that market fundamentals remain strong in the Triangle region, but one would be naïve to completely downplay the effects of a languishing national housing market on us here locally.

So how does one not only cope, but excel? Insert and maintain strategy. Michael Porter, in his book "Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance," outlines methods to analyze specific strategies to generate superior return on investment. He states that even in an industry with declining profitability, a properly positioned individual or firm can still generate superior returns. He argues that this should be achieved in one of three mutually exclusive ways: having a superior product, having the lowest priced product, or a having a strategy to deliver a finely tuned product to a narrow target market. Porter cautions, however, that by blurring the lines and catering to everyone, you are really selling to no one.

I find his advice very applicable to the projects that we are working on here at Boylan Development. It is refreshing to see some strategy and science applied to the development of these projects. From our student-focused housing projects to our efforts in LEED certification, I feel as though each project is designed uniquely from the ground-up to capture a certain audience. The process begins with selecting sites that most companies would bypass because of increased complexity involved in obtaining requisite approvals. The process culminates with filling that site with an architecturally relevant and unique community that the market will absorb. These details differentiate our communities and help to offer more focused final products in superior locations.

I feel these efforts will not go unnoticed as homeowners begin to realize the need for product differentiation. Differentiation is valuable for both added emotional satisfaction while living in your home as well as an added asset in resale situations. Sure, many people would love to live in turn-of-the century homes nestled in a quaint historic district, but many seemingly have unnecessarily opted for cookie cutter developments scattered across suburbia. There does not have to be such a dichotomy in choice and our development process is working to bridge that gap. In this maligned housing market, our developments continue to deliver a significant and sustainable competitive advantage for both our firm and ultimately the residents of our communities.