Martin Communications and Ken Harvey Homes win NCHBA website award

Martin Communications and Ken Harvey Homes won Best Website for a Building Company at the North Carolina Home Builders Association’s 2026 STARS Awards. The win highlights an AI assistant and automated Parade of Homes route planner that helped drive stronger traffic and lead conversion on kenharveyhomes.com.

Why it matters: - The award underscores how home builders are using AI and automation to shorten the buyer research process and turn websites into active sales tools. - Ken Harvey Homes says the site now helps prospects arrive better informed, which can speed up appointments and improve lead quality.

What happened: - Martin Communications and Ken Harvey Homes won Best Website for a Building Company at the North Carolina Home Builders Association’s 2026 STARS Awards. - The award was presented Monday, Aug. 31, at Hilton Charlotte University Place in Charlotte, North Carolina. - The winning site is kenharveyhomes.com.

The details: - The site’s AI assistant answers detailed prospect questions using live inventory, floor plan and pricing data. - The assistant is available on every page of the site. - The assistant is designed to handle more specific questions than a standard website search tool. - A new Parade of Homes page automatically builds and orders a driving route to each Ken Harvey home on the tour. - The feature replaces printed maps and manual route planning during a busy event weekend. - Since launch, the site has delivered a 160.4% increase in monthly website visitors. - The site has also produced 100.81% year-over-year traffic growth. - Lead form conversions are up 116.7%. - The website organizes more than 53 floor plans into Signature and Essential Collections. - The site includes a room-by-room photo gallery. - The site includes a dedicated section for Ken Harvey Homes’ in-house Design Studio. - The website includes built-in accessibility tools. - The site supports English, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. - Ken Harvey Homes currently builds across 17+ communities in the Raleigh-Durham Triangle. - The company offers more than 53 floor plans priced from $340,000 to more than $4,250,000. - More information is available at kenharveyhomes.com and thinkmartinfirst.com.

Between the lines: - The award signals that builder websites are being judged not just on appearance, but on whether they reduce friction for buyers and generate measurable leads. - The AI assistant’s real-time database connection is a notable differentiator in a local market where many builder sites still rely on static content. - The Parade of Homes route tool shows how small utility features can solve practical pain points and stand out during high-traffic sales events.

What's next: - Martin Communications and Ken Harvey Homes are likely to keep leaning on the website’s AI and utility features as part of the sales process. - The company’s next competitive edge may come from expanding the same kind of buyer-facing automation to more parts of the website.

The bottom line: - The award reflects a simple shift: for home builders, the best website is increasingly the one that answers questions, guides visits and creates leads before a salesperson ever steps in.