How to fill a building with reservations before it exists: the timeline, the reservation math your lender cares about, the rules in Chicago, Miami, New York and Los Angeles, and what it costs in 2027.
Kirill Samarits, Founder and CEO, TERAMOKBefore groundbreaking, on our West Loop, Chicago launch. Each lit square is a reserved home.
Image: AI-generated visualization by TERAMOK from the architects' renders, LITO Residences for NUR Developments. The lights are illustrative.
Six shifts a developer planning a 2027 launch should build into the plan. Each one links to its source.
For a new condo project, Fannie Mae requires at least 50% of the units in the project or legal phase to be sold or under contract to people who will live there or use it as a second home. Investor sales do not count.
Track owner-occupant and second-home reservations separately. They decide whether your buyers can get a conventional loan.Source: Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-2.2-02FHA approves only finished condo projects or phases with a certificate of occupancy, and a new building needs at least 30% of units owned or sold to owner-occupants.
FHA buyers belong in the closing plan, not the presale target. Market to them near completion.Source: HUD Handbook 4000.1, II.C.2The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 7.40% on 8 October 2026, up from 6.76% five weeks earlier. The 2026 average so far is 6.46%.
Show monthly cost, deposit schedule and closing date plainly. Buyers reserving now are pricing a loan they will take in 2028.Source: Freddie Mac rate survey via FRED, MORTGAGE30USPermits for buildings with five or more homes are running at about 476,000 a year in 2026, 27% below the 2022 peak of 656,000.
Less new supply in 2027 and 2028, but the buyers who remain compare every launch closely. Being clearly different matters more.Source: US Census Bureau via FRED, PERMIT5Florida condo associations with buildings of three or more stories must complete their structural integrity reserve study, and reserves for those items can no longer be waived. The latest allowed date is 31 December 2026.
Miami buyers comparing an older building with a new one now see inspection and reserve costs. Put the comparison on your site, with facts.Source: Fla. Stat. 718.112(2)(g) and 553.899Questions such as "which marketing firms specialize in pre-construction luxury condo marketing?" now arrive in Google as full sentences, the way people talk to assistants. teramok.us ranks first for that one.
Buyers ask the same way about your project. Publish its facts on your own site so the answer quotes you.Source: teramok.us Search Console, 12 months to 26 Sep 2026Permits and starts for buildings with five or more homes, thousands a year. 2026 is January to August. Fewer projects started in 2024 means fewer competing deliveries in 2027.
■ Permits ■ Starts. Source: US Census Bureau via FRED, PERMIT5 and HOUST5F, seasonally adjusted annual rates, averaged by year.
Start from the number your lender needs and work backwards to the leads you need each month. The defaults are our West Loop launch: 48 homes, 7 months, one reservation for every eight qualified leads.
That is about the pace of our West Loop launch, which reserved 22 homes in 7 months. Reachable with a full program started on time.
A planning tool, not a forecast. Lender presale requirements vary by lender, project and market. For a line-by-line budget, use the presale budget calculator.
Count back from the date your lender needs the presales. Each stage has what ships, the rule that limits it, and the number to watch.
Your state's filing, not your marketing calendar, decides when you can take deposits.
The number to watchInterest list size and who is on it
When you may advertise, what you may take as a deposit, and how you may target ads. Plain summaries with the statute or policy linked. Confirm your project with counsel.
On a first sale of a condo, the seller must give the buyer the declaration, bylaws, projected operating budget and floor plan before the contract is signed. If something is missing, the buyer can void the contract until 5 days after the last item arrives, or closing if earlier.
Have the document package ready before reservations turn into contracts, or the sales pipeline stays soft.Source: 765 ILCS 605/22Deposits on first sales go into a segregated, interest-bearing escrow account at a federally insured institution until title passes, with interest credited to the buyer. No interest is owed if title transfers within 45 days of the contract.
Deposits cannot fund the campaign. Budget marketing from equity or the loan, not from buyer money.Source: 765 ILCS 605/24Checked against the primary sources on 14 October 2026. This is marketing guidance, not legal advice.
TERAMOK's published prices. Most launches combine a monthly program with one-time production in the first months.
of projected sellout is a sound marketing budget for a condo launch, including production and media. A 48-home building at $850,000 average sells out at about $40.8 million, so about $408,000 over the campaign.
Build your budget line by line →All published prices →Results from US developments we marketed. The clients are under NDA, so the projects are not named.
homes reserved before groundbreaking, 46% of the building, from 180 qualified leads and no cold calling
West Loop, Chicago. 7-month pre-construction campaign. Client under NDA.qualified leads became a reservation on that launch, the benchmark the planner above starts from
Same West Loop launch. Your market and price will differ.in 28 days on about $1,000 of ads, 41 of them warm at about $24 each
44-unit development, Miami, July 2026. Client under NDA.of a 200-unit development presold before groundbreaking
New development, lead generation and awareness campaigns. Client under NDA.More dated results with screenshots on our case studies and pre-construction benchmarks pages.
Recognition takes three to four months to build. A campaign that starts 60 days before sales opens spends the first month finding its audience.
More spend on a weak brand brings more of the wrong buyers. The creative and the website decide what the media buys.
Buyers spending seven figures judge the project by the site. A slow, generic site loses the reservation the ad earned.
A render that shows a view, finish or amenity you will not build is a legal problem later. Label every visualization and match the plans.
Three million impressions and no qualified leads is a failing campaign. Report leads, tours and reservations against the lender's number.
Buyers and brokers now ask ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode about a project before they call. If the facts are not on your site, the answer comes from someone else.
Presale marketing is the brand, content, website and advertising work that produces signed reservations and contracts before a building is finished, usually before groundbreaking. It is measured in reservations against the number your lender needs, not in impressions or followers.
About 12 months before your lender's presale date for positioning, with production 6 to 9 months out and launch about 6 months out. Recognition takes three to four months to build. Your state's filing rules decide when you can take deposits, so the legal check comes first.
At TERAMOK a full launch program runs $8,000 to $25,000 a month, plus one-time production: brand identity $25,000 to $60,000, launch website from $9,000 (custom builds $25,000 to $50,000), films $15,000 to $50,000 each, CGI from $7,000. Media is paid by the developer at 0% markup. As a planning rule, condo launches budget about 1% of projected sellout for marketing.
On our West Loop, Chicago launch, 180 qualified leads produced 22 reservations, about one reservation for every eight qualified leads, with no cold calling. Your price point and market change the ratio, so set the target with your sales team before launch.
Yes, if every image is labeled as a visualization and matches what you will build. Some states also control when you may advertise or take deposits. New York allows no reservations or deposits until the offering plan is accepted, while California allows refundable reservations under a preliminary public report. Have counsel confirm the wording.
Housing ads in the US cannot target or exclude people by protected characteristics. Meta's housing category removes age, gender and ZIP code targeting and limits location targeting to a radius, and Google blocks targeting housing ads by age, gender, parental status, marital status or ZIP code. Your creative and landing pages have to find the right buyers.
No. Brokers sell what buyers already want. Presale marketing creates that demand, and brokers bring their buyers to the projects with the strongest brand, content and website first.
Yes, with a smaller scope. A 10 to 20 unit project can run on a launch website, CGI and a sales acceleration campaign instead of a full program. The order of steps stays the same.
Buyers, brokers and lenders now ask AI assistants about a project, its developer and its neighborhood before they call. Projects that publish clear facts on their own site, matched on press and listings, get quoted. We check what ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude say about a project every month.
Send us the unit count, the price range and your lender's date. In 30 minutes we will tell you whether the pace is realistic and what we would do first.