New-Home Sales · Chapter 01 of 10

The job, the numbers and the license

On-site counselor, OSC, or sales manager: which one are you, how does the pay work, does your state require a license for it, and what does your division actually look at every Monday.

Why this chapter

Every new-home sales job description reads the same and pays differently. Before you learn any tool, get straight on which role you actually hold, what it pays where you work, whether your state requires a license for the way you get paid, and the handful of numbers your division reviews every Monday. This chapter also sets up the one document that makes every later chapter faster: the community file.

The three roles and how builders split them

Job titles vary by builder (new home consultant, community sales manager, sales counselor), but the work splits into three jobs. The on-site counselor's job is described industry-wide as "all over the map": presentation, backlog, construction issues, loan updates, problem-solving, closing claim[1]. The OSC's job is narrower by design: work every lead that comes from the website or phone, qualify it, set the appointment, and hand a warm buyer to the on-site team claim[2]. An OSC is explicitly "not an on-site sales consultant"; the on-site rep is the one who "pushes the sale over the line" claim[1].

Role	What they own	How they are paid	What a good week looks like
On-site counselor (new home consultant, community sales manager)	The model home presentation, the homesite walk, backlog and construction issues on their contracts, loan-status updates, closing the buyer	Commission-heavy: a base or draw plus commission on closed sales, paid through the builder's own payroll, not a resale-style co-op split	Appointments kept, be-backs that convert, at least one contract written, no unattended traffic during open hours
Online sales counselor (OSC)	Every web and phone lead for the community, first reply, qualification, appointment setting, the handoff to the on-site rep	Salaried or salary plus bonus and incentive, not straight commission; described consistently across trade sources as a different comp model than on-site inference[3]	Fast first replies, appointments set and kept, a shrinking pile of aged leads
New-home sales manager	Multiple communities or reps, the Monday numbers review, pricing and incentive strategy, backlog and cancellation management	Base plus an override or bonus tied to community performance; an exact published structure was not found report	Absorption on pace across communities, cancellation rate inside the range the division expects, backlog that supports the build schedule

Compensation in plain words

Job-site salary aggregators are the best public proxy for new-home sales pay. No single national NAHB or Zonda survey with a published draw formula was located report[4]. Treat every figure below as a job-site average, not an offer, and confirm your own comp plan's percentage, draw terms, and payout timing in writing with your sales manager before you count on it.

On-site counselor, national average (all-in). Indeed puts average base salary at $99,777 a year plus average commission of $19,890 a year, on trailing 36-month data report[5].
On-site counselor, range. Glassdoor's entry-level range is $22,986 to $108,799 a year across 890 data points; with five-plus years of experience the range rises to roughly $24,263 to $138,355 report[6].
On-site counselor, by region. Regional Glassdoor figures cited: California about $134,638 to $231,968; Colorado about $114,086 to $195,682; Austin, Texas about $124,567 to $210,170; Florida about $120,219 average plus about $19,890 commission per Indeed's Florida data report[6][5].
OSC, national average. ZipRecruiter's Online Sales Consultant figures: average $66,210 a year; 25th percentile $40,500; 75th percentile $79,500; 90th percentile $107,500 report[7]. A much higher Glassdoor figure for a generic "Online Sales Consultant" title exists but reads as a title mismatch outside new-home sales, so it is not used here.
Commission as a percent of price. No single published national percentage exists for a production-builder in-house rep's commission rate. This is set community by community and division by division; ask for it in writing, not from a coworker's memory report[4].
Draws. A draw against future commission is the common structure at commission-heavy on-site roles, but no publicly available survey documents an exact, current draw formula for production-builder sales staff report[4]. Ask what happens to an unearned draw if you leave or if a contract cancels; get that answer in writing.
OSC salary plus bonus. Trade press consistently describes OSCs as salaried or salary-plus-bonus employees rather than 100 percent commission, which is the main structural difference between the OSC and on-site roles, though no single named survey gives an exact base-to-bonus split inference[3].

The license question, state by state

Most states exempt a builder's own employees from real estate licensing when they sell the builder's own inventory, but the exemptions are far less uniform than the industry assumes, and several turn on how you are paid. If your comp includes a commission tied to a specific sale, read your state's row carefully and do not assume the exemption covers you.

State	Exemption	Limit		Source
Arizona	A.R.S. 32-2121(A)(1) exempts an owner (including a builder entity, acting through its officers) dealing in its own property	Only applies if the person does not receive special, transaction-based compensation and a majority of duties are not brokerage acts; the exact ADRE policy on salaried, commissioned builder sales staff was not confirmed in this pass	verified	[8]
Texas	Tex. Occ. Code 1101.005 and TREC Rule 535.34 exempt a person employed by the builder to sell the builder's own structures	Must be a bona fide employee; independent-contractor status is not enough, per TREC's own consumer FAQ	verified	[9]
Florida	Fla. Stat. 475.011 exempts an owner selling its own property	The exemption explicitly does not apply to an agent, employee, or contractor "paid a commission or other compensation strictly on a transactional basis"; commissioned on-site reps likely fall outside it	verified	[10]
California	Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 10133(a) exempts a regular corporate officer acting for property the corporation owns or leases	Narrow: covers officers, not general sales staff, and only "if the acts are not performed in expectation of special compensation"; commissioned reps who are not officers likely need a license	verified	[11]
Nevada	Not confirmed	The specific NRS 645 owner-developer exemption language for a builder's salaried sales employees was not located and fetched in this research pass; read NRS Chapter 645 directly or ask the Nevada Real Estate Division before relying on any Nevada claim	not confirmed	[12]
Georgia	O.C.G.A. 43-40-29(a)(8) exempts a person employed full time by the owner to sell that real estate	The Georgia Real Estate Commission is reported to interpret this narrowly; the Georgia Association of Realtors' own FAQ answer to whether a builder can use unlicensed full-time employees to sell exclusively its own property is "No"	inference	[13]
North Carolina	N.C. Gen. Stat. 93A-2 exempts W-2 employees of a closely held business entity acting for an exempt owner entity	Requires a written disclosure to all parties naming the exemption and the legal owner, plus an annual notice filed with the NC Secretary of State; it is a paperwork exemption, not an automatic one	verified	[14]
South Carolina	None	South Carolina's own regulator states plainly there is "No Builder's Exemption in SC"	verified	[15]

The short version: commissioned reps in Florida and California may fall outside the builder-employee exemption entirely, and several other states attach conditions (Georgia's narrow reading, North Carolina's filing requirement) that are easy to miss. Confirm your specific situation with the builder's counsel before you assume you are covered, especially if your pay includes any per-sale commission.

Training and credentials

The credential landscape changed in a way a lot of older blog content still gets wrong.

NAHB CSP (Certified New Home Sales Professional). Closed to new candidates effective December 31, 2022, and remains closed as of this writing. Candidates who started before that date are handled case by case; contact NAHB Education directly verified[16].
NAHB Master CSP. A continuing-education-level credential that builds on the now-closed CSP base claim[17].
NAHB MIRM (Member, Institute of Residential Marketing). Described as the top-level achievement for new-home marketing professionals; no current pricing or enrollment status was confirmed in this pass claim.
Jeff Shore / Shore Consulting. Known for customer-focused, psychology-based new-home sales training; runs the "Closing 2.0 Academy" and public seminars claim[18].
Myers Barnes. Branded "America's Favorite New Home Sales Consultant"; business-development and leadership-focused program claim.
Melinda Brody & Company. Known for mystery-shopping model-home sales teams, plus customized coaching claim.
Roland Nairnsey (New Home Sales Plus). Author of "Mastery of Selling for New Homes," runs international new-home sales coaching claim.
Jason Forrest / Forrest Performance Group. Runs "Warrior Selling," a 12-step program, plus a specific "Mastering New Home Sales" 90-day format with weekly video lessons and group coaching claim[19].
Do You Convert (Mike Lyon and Kevin Oakley). The most-cited OSC-specific training organization; runs an 8-week Online Sales Academy, 3 days of virtual half-day classes followed by 8 weeks of sessions and coaching claim[20].

None of the named trainers above publish program pricing on their public sites; expect a sales call to get a quote, not a price sheet.

The Monday numbers

Every division reviews a version of this list on Monday morning. Learn the definitions before you learn any target, because the target is set locally.

Traffic. Everyone who walked in or toured, counted at the community level.
Be-backs. A prospect who toured, did not buy, and is expected to return. New-home sales training treats disciplined be-back follow-up as central to conversion, more so than in most retail sales settings inference[21].
Agent-accompanied traffic. Visits where a registered buyer's agent is present, tracked separately because it changes who gets paid a co-op commission.
Appointments set and kept. The OSC's core output; a kept appointment is a scheduled visit that actually happened.
Conversion. How many visits or appointments turn into a contract. One dated (2017) conservative funnel model puts roughly 5,000 web visitors at 500,000 impressions, 25 leads, 5 appointments, and 1 sale, which implies about 20 percent lead-to-appointment and 20 percent appointment-to-sale in that model report[22]. Treat that as an old, single-source illustration, not a current benchmark.
Cancellations. Public builders report this quarterly and it varies widely by company discipline: D.R. Horton's fiscal Q3 2026 cancellation rate was 20 percent of gross sales orders, up from 17 percent the prior year, attributed to buyer qualification challenges verified[23]. KB Home's Q2 2026 rate improved to 12 percent from 16 percent a year earlier, credited to a higher-quality backlog report[24]. PulteGroup's Q2 2026 rate was 13 percent, with incentives running 10.4 percent of sales price report[25].
Backlog. Homes under contract that have not yet closed; it is what feeds the construction schedule.
Absorption per community. The pace of sales, usually homes sold per month, at a specific community. Nationally, new-home months of supply stood at 9.6 months in July 2026, against a historically balanced range of about 4 to 6 months report[26].

A note on incentives, since it shapes every one of these numbers right now: 63 percent of builders reported using sales incentives in August 2026, unchanged month over month, and 35 percent reported cutting prices, down from 37 percent in July, per NAHB's monthly builder survey verified[27]. That is the normal condition of the market this year, not an exception, and it is worth knowing before you sit in your first Monday meeting.

Public, numeric weekly targets for cancellation rate, backlog-to-closing ratio, or per-community absorption pace were not found in this research pass; that category of data lives mostly in paid subscriber research. Take your actual targets from your own division, not from a blog post report.

The community file

Build one plain-text page for your community before you need it. It becomes the fact base you paste into a Claude Project, so every draft it writes for you is grounded in numbers you actually confirmed, not numbers it guessed.

COMMUNITY: [name]
BUILDER: [builder legal name]
ADDRESS: [street, city, state, zip]
HOURS: [model home hours, days closed]

PLANS AND PRICE BANDS (as of [date]):
[plan name] - [sq ft] - [base price low] to [base price high]
[plan name] - [sq ft] - [base price low] to [base price high]

LOT PREMIUMS: [low] to [high]
HOA: [fee, frequency, what it covers]
SCHOOLS (facts only, no ranking claims): [elementary], [middle], [high]

INCENTIVES (current as of [date]):
[incentive detail, expiration if any]

PREFERRED LENDER: [name]
AfBA REMINDER: give the written affiliated-business disclosure at first referral,
before any application. Never let this go out undisclosed or late.

REGISTRATION POLICY: [when a buyer's agent must be present, first visit rule]
CO-OP POLICY: [percent, conditions, who confirms it in writing]

REP CONTACT: [name, phone, email]

Claude does, human does

Two workflows for this chapter. Both assume you have already opened a Claude Project for your community and pasted the community file in as project knowledge, which Projects support as a self-contained workspace with its own knowledge base verified[28].

Write the community file with Claude

Trigger: you are assigned to a new community, or the price sheet or incentive changes.

Claude prepares: takes your rough notes, photos of the price board, and the incentive flyer, and drops them into the plain-text template above, field by field, flagging anything missing.

Human checks and does: you verify every number, every school name, and the AfBA and registration language against the builder's actual price sheet, HOA disclosure, and co-op policy, then you save the confirmed file as the Project's knowledge base.

Never automated: Claude never invents a price, an HOA fee, an incentive expiration date, or a co-op percentage. Nothing in this file gets shown to a buyer or an agent until you have confirmed it against the source document.

Turn the price sheet into a plain-English cheat sheet

Trigger: the builder issues an updated price sheet, paper or PDF.

Claude prepares: reformats the sheet into a table you can read in two seconds: plan, base price, square footage, price per square foot, current incentive.

Human checks and does: you check every number in the reformatted table against the source price sheet, line by line, and confirm the "as of" date before you hand it to anyone.

Never automated: Claude never quotes a rate, a payment, or a term on its own; that language carries Reg Z trigger-term rules covered in the pricing chapter, and it is never sent to a buyer without your review.

What stays human

Confirming your exact comp plan, draw terms, and payout timing in writing with your sales manager.
Verifying your state's licensing exemption applies to how you are actually paid, with the builder's counsel, before you sell a single home.
Checking every number in the community file and every reformatted price sheet against the builder's source document before it reaches a buyer or an agent.
Delivering the AfBA disclosure to a buyer in person, in writing, at first referral.
Deciding your own targets for the Monday numbers with your sales manager, not from a published industry figure.

Do this today

Write down your exact role (on-site counselor, OSC, or sales manager) and pull your state's row from the licensing table above; flag anything unconfirmed to your sales manager today.
Open a Claude Project for your community and paste in the plain-text community file template, even mostly blank, so you have a place to fill it in field by field this week.
Ask your sales manager what your division's actual weekly targets are for traffic, conversion, and cancellation, since none of those numbers are published anywhere public.

Sources

O'Neil Interactive, "Every Sales Counselor is an Online Sales Counselor," https://oneilinteractive.com/blog/2012/10/every-sales-counselor-is-and-online-sales-counselor-part-one/, retrieved 2026-09-04
Bokka Group, "Build an Online Sales Counselor Program for New Home Construction," https://www.bokkagroup.com/home-builder-insights/articles/build-an-online-sales-counselor-program-for-new-home-construction, retrieved 2026-09-04
Bokka Group, same article above, on OSC comp structure, retrieved 2026-09-04
Research synthesis, no NAHB, Zonda, or Builder magazine draw-formula survey located, retrieved 2026-09-04
Indeed, New Home Sales Consultant salaries, https://www.indeed.com/career/new-home-sales-consultant/salaries, retrieved 2026-09-04
Glassdoor, New Home Sales Consultant salaries, https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/new-home-sales-consultant-salary-SRCH_KO0,25.htm, retrieved 2026-09-04
ZipRecruiter, Online Sales Consultant Salary, https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Online-Sales-Consultant-Salary, retrieved 2026-09-04
Arizona Revised Statutes 32-2121(A)(1), https://codes.findlaw.com/az/title-32-professions-and-occupations/az-rev-st-sect-32-2121/, retrieved 2026-09-04
Texas Real Estate Commission, "Do I need a license to sell a builder's new houses," https://www.trec.texas.gov/do-i-need-license-sell-builders-new-houses, retrieved 2026-09-04
Florida Statutes 475.011, https://law.justia.com/codes/florida/title-xxxii/chapter-475/part-i/section-475-011/, retrieved 2026-09-04
California Business and Professions Code 10133(a), https://california.public.law/codes/business_and_professions_code_section_10133, retrieved 2026-09-04
Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 645, https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-645.html, retrieved 2026-09-04 (exemption text not confirmed)
O.C.G.A. 43-40-29(a)(8), https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2021/title-43/chapter-40/section-43-40-29/, and Georgia Association of Realtors legal FAQ, https://garealtor.com/law-ethics/legal-faqs/, retrieved 2026-09-04
N.C. Gen. Stat. 93A-2, https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_93A/GS_93A-2.html, retrieved 2026-09-04
South Carolina LLR, "No Builder's Exemption in SC," https://llr.sc.gov/re/News/No%20Builder's%20Exemption%20in%20SC.pdf, retrieved 2026-09-04
NAHB, Certified New Home Sales Professional (CSP), https://www.nahb.org/education-and-events/credentials/certified-new-home-sales-professional-csp, retrieved 2026-09-04
NAHB, Master CSP, https://www.nahb.org/education-and-events/credentials/master-certified-new-home-sales-professional-master-csp/how-to-earn-your-master-csp, retrieved 2026-09-04
Jeff Shore, New Home Sales Training, https://jeffshore.com/new-home-sales-training/, retrieved 2026-09-04
Forrest Performance Group, Mastering New Home Sales, https://fpg.com/sales-and-management-training/warrior-selling/mastering-new-home-sales/, retrieved 2026-09-04
Do You Convert, Online Sales Academy, https://onlinesales.doyouconvert.com/sales-academy/, retrieved 2026-09-04
Trade-source synthesis on be-back follow-up discipline, https://blog.jome.com/new-home-follow-up-cadence-template/, retrieved 2026-09-04
Bokka Group, "Average Conversion Rates for Home Builder Sales" (2017 model), https://www.bokkagroup.com/home-builder-insights/articles/average-conversion-rates-home-builder-sales, retrieved 2026-09-04
D.R. Horton fiscal Q3 2026 earnings release, https://investor.drhorton.com/~/media/Files/D/D-R-Horton-IR/press-release/dhi-q3-2026-earnings-release.pdf, retrieved 2026-09-04
PulteGroup Q2 2026 earnings coverage, https://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/articles/pultegroup-inc-q2-2026-earnings-170541948.html, retrieved 2026-09-04
KB Home Q2 2026 earnings coverage, https://www.stocktitan.net/news/KBH/kb-home-reports-2026-second-quarter-c2uj8hm0da4z.html, retrieved 2026-09-04
HousingWire, "New home supply hits 9.6 months," https://www.housingwire.com/articles/new-home-supply-9-6-months/, retrieved 2026-09-04
NAHB, "Affordability Pressures Keep Builder Confidence Low," August 2026 press release, https://www.nahb.org/news-and-economics/press-releases/2026/08/affordability-pressures-keep-builder-confidence-low, retrieved 2026-09-04
Claude Support, "What are Projects," https://support.claude.com/en/articles/9517075-what-are-projects, retrieved 2026-09-04

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