A New Direction For A Storied Canadian Homebuilder
TORONTO – July 16, 2012… Brad Carr has been appointed President of Monarch Corporation of Toronto.
Carr’s vision is to draw on Monarch’s more than 95 years of experience in managing development and execution of strategic, operational and financial business plans for single-family and high-rise operations in Canada, while seizing on new opportunities for growth in the fast-changing Canadian marketplace.
For the 40-year-old Carr — who joined Monarch in 2001 as Manager of Land Acquisitions and was promoted to Senior Vice President of Low-rise Operations in 2004 — many of those growth opportunities are reflective of the new ways home buyers research and purchase homes.
“In days past, people visited our sales centres to learn about our homes,” Carr said. “Now they arrive having researched us on the Internet; they’ve compared us to our competitors; understand the high quality of our products and services and want to discuss purchasing their next home. The sales cycle is much different from before and that’s changing the way we do business. We now have an exciting opportunity to validate buyers’ purchasing decisions by innovating with the design of our sales centres, not to mention utilizing new tools such as social media and interactive online marketing to appeal to the next generation of home buyers.”
But Carr also believes that Monarch, which consistently ranks among the top five home builders in the Greater Toronto Area with more than 3,000 homes currently in production or awaiting occupancy, is well-positioned to seize on other key trends such as the greater demand for family-friendly housing in urban areas.
Carr plans to continue exploring urban in-fill opportunities in the GTA as densification intensifies across the city. He estimates Monarch can grow its presence in long-neglected urban areas — particularly former brownfield sites throughout the city — while also delivering product that suits the needs of families.
In recent years, Monarch has answered the call to build family-friendly homes with new developments such as the recently – released Birkdale community in Scarborough — a mix of three and four-bedroom townhomes of up to 2,200 square feet — along with developing a wide range of affordable and generously apportioned condominiums and single-family homes across the GTA.
“We may change our approach to marketing, as well as the size, shape and location of the new homes we build, but if we do our jobs right, the home buyer won’t see any change in our trademark service levels and the quality of our finished products,” Carr says. “We’ve built a brand dedicated to constructing homes where people can raise their children, become part of a community and build memories that last a lifetime. We’re just as committed to those ideals now as we were in 1917 when Monarch was founded.” Visit www.monarchgroup.net