In Charlotte, George Goodyear offers this house for $23,500
and finds "sales are excellent, better than six months ago"
The "split-level craze" has hit North Carolina, and nahb's First Vice-President George Goodyear is rolling along with it.
The model above is one of several designs which offer 2,000 sq. ft. of floor space, or more, and sell for $18,000 to $23,500. All include built-in appliances and one, at $21,750, throws in air conditioning. Splits account for nearly half of Goodyear's sales.
But you don't just roll along in a buyer's market unless you have planned well and far in advance. That's what Goodyear and his partner Charles Martin did. To wit:
All their houses are architect-designed, by Emroy R. Holroyd Jr.
They sell many houses on trade-ins.
They offer ranch houses as well as splits, and include built-in ovens and ranges, attic fans and dishwashers in almost all houses.
Their $12,000-$ 15,000 smaller models are still selling well in this toughest-of-all brackets "because we're the only people in that price class in the right part of town."ť
They are getting set, meanwhile, to meet the 1957 market. They have a 400-lot tract on hand for a future project, are planning to build a sewage treatment plant for it. And they already have Holroyd's designs for front-to-back and back-to-front splits which Charlotte has not yet seen.