[Image, left to right: Hayden Homes' Steve Klingman, President, Katy Wooderson, VP, Marketing & Customer Experience, and Katie McGowan, Corporate Marketing Manager]

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. homebuilders faced a stark challenge: how to sell homes when traditional face-to-face interactions, model home tours, and in-person design consultations were suddenly off the table. What had been long discussed — digital tools for streamlining and improving the homebuying journey — became an immediate necessity. Builders scrambled to implement systems that reduced friction, simplified decisions, and made the process less opaque for buyers.

These early advances — online visualization tools, virtual tours, and remote contracting — were bold steps. Yet, they were only the beginning. Now, Hayden Homes has launched a Digital Homebuying Experience that not only builds on the Covid-era innovations but elevates them to an entirely new level.

This platform goes beyond what homebuyers have experienced before, addressing a demand not just for convenience but for true empowerment and control, offering a level of transparency and customization that aligns with today’s digital consumer expectations.

A Homebuying Journey Redefined

Imagine a buyer, sitting at their kitchen table late in the evening after a long day, with their laptop open. They log into Hayden Homes’ platform and begin to design their dream home in a way that feels almost as intuitive as shopping for a car or ordering a tailored pair of sneakers.

Founded in Redmond, Oregon, Hayden Homes has been a cornerstone of the Pacific Northwest housing market for over 35 years. With a mission to provide affordable, high-quality homes to underserved communities, the company has delivered more than 26,000 homes across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. By the end of 2024, Hayden expects to close on 1,700 additional homes, reflecting its commitment to meeting the needs of hardworking families. This deep regional focus and affordable positioning are integral to Hayden’s ethos, as its leadership continues to prioritize housing access while advancing innovations that enhance the buyer experience.

• They start by selecting their preferred floor plan, browsing a virtual gallery of options. After choosing a layout, they dive into personalizing the exterior, selecting paint colors, siding, masonry, and roofing options. A few clicks later, they’ve customized their home’s curb appeal—and right there on the screen, they see how those choices impact the total cost of their home and the projected monthly mortgage payment.
• Moving to structural options, they add a three-car garage for $16,500, then decide to flip the garage orientation to fit better on their preferred lot. The system not only recalculates costs but ensures these changes comply with local zoning or community design guidelines — rules that in traditional processes often emerge as frustrating roadblocks later.
• In the interior design phase, the platform becomes even more immersive. The buyer selects a rustic design package that simplifies choices while ensuring a cohesive aesthetic, but they’re not locked in. They tweak individual elements— opting for white-painted kitchen cabinets, upgrading to granite countertops, and choosing a backsplash with a higher-contrast tile pattern. Each choice is reflected instantly in the running total cost.

As Katie McGowan, Corporate Marketing Manager, describes it,

We’ve created a system where customers can see exactly what their decisions mean for their budget. They can play around, explore, and fine-tune their choices until they feel confident.”

This transparency is further enhanced by a built-in mortgage calculator, allowing buyers to see how changes affect their estimated monthly payments in real time. Whether they’re deciding on a hot tub pre-wire or additional exterior outlets, the financial impact is clear and immediate.

Bringing the Lot and Design Together

Hayden’s homesite selector is a breakthrough in itself, solving a common stress point for buyers: choosing the perfect lot and ensuring it’s compatible with their chosen home design. Traditional methods often required buyers to make these decisions in separate, disjointed steps, sometimes literally standing on a patch of dirt with a floor plan sketch in hand.

The platform simplifies this with real-time integration.

As Judd Rook, Director of Technology, explains,

Our homesite selector ranks available lots by best fit, comparing the buyer’s chosen options to site requirements like lot width or exterior color constraints. Buyers can adjust their design or explore other communities if needed—all without leaving their screen.”

In a particularly innovative touch, the system flags choices that might limit compatibility, such as a three-car garage that won’t fit on a narrower lot, and suggests alternatives. This ensures that buyers can make fully informed decisions before proceeding to the next step.

From Transaction to Transformation

Hayden Homes’ platform doesn’t just make buying a home easier; it transforms the entire relationship between builder and buyer. During the pandemic, the goal was to reduce friction. Now, the goal is to empower.

• Buyers have full control, able to design, adjust, and save their progress at their own pace.

It’s about flexibility,” says McGowan. “They can hop on and off the highway of the journey, engaging when and where it works best for them.”

• Sales teams shift from being persuaders to concierge-style guides, equipped with full visibility into the buyer’s selections and progress. This alignment reduces misunderstandings and makes every in-person interaction more productive and enjoyable.
• Even after reserving their home with a refundable $1,000 deposit, buyers are supported with timely updates on construction timelines, financing options, and readiness to close.

This isn’t a one-and-done effort,” Rook emphasizes. “Future iterations will extend this journey all the way through closing and key delivery.”

Strategic Implications for the Industry

Hayden Homes is not merely innovating for its buyers; it’s setting a challenge for the entire homebuilding industry.

Builders who fail to adapt to these expectations will lose relevance,” warns Katy Wooderson, VP of Marketing and Customer Experience.

Hayden’s approach benefits from its scale and consistency. By standardizing floor plans across its four-state footprint, the company has created a platform that is both efficient and replicable.

As Steve Klingman, Hayden Homes President, notes,

Many builders develop new products for every community, making online integration difficult. Our consistency allows us to leverage what we’ve built for maximum customer benefit.”

Competitors will face pressure to match Hayden’s investment in transparency and customization, especially as younger, digitally-native buyers come to dominate the market.

Why It Matters Now

In today’s volatile market, marked by high borrowing costs, affordability concerns, and economic uncertainty, giving buyers clarity and confidence is more than a competitive advantage — it’s a necessity.

• Control over Costs: Buyers can align their dream home with their budget without surprises.
• Demographic Alignment: Millennial and Gen Z buyers expect the seamless, personalized experience they’re used to with other high-ticket purchases.

Hayden’s innovation also points toward a broader evolution in the builder-buyer relationship, where technology doesn’t replace people but enhances their ability to provide value. As Klingman puts it,

Creating an accessible and seamless homebuying experience doesn’t just make sense — it’s essential for empowering families and ensuring the future of our industry.”

Take-away

Hayden Homes’ Digital Homebuying Experience represents a leap forward, not just for the company but for the industry at large. By combining cutting-edge technology with an empathetic understanding of what buyers need, Hayden has redefined what it means to purchase a new home.

In a world where complexity and uncertainty often dominate the homebuying process, Hayden Homes offers something starkly different: a clear, empowering, and joyful path to homeownership.

For buyers, builders, and strategists alike, this innovation is not just a glimpse of the future — it’s the future arriving.