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September 2006

Welcome to the 2006 Parade of Homes Fall Showcase^SM

The Builders Association of the Twin Cities is proud to present the 2006 Parade of Homes Fall Showcase^SM. In its fifty-eighth year, the Parade of Homes^SM is truly the best way for you to choose a new home, select a home builder, and  see what’s new in styles, finishes, materials, and products for your own home. 

We hope you’ll enjoy touring the work of 412 of the area’s best builders, free of charge. We have 1,210 new homes and neighborhoods for you to tour, all across  the metropolitan area, priced from just over $129,000 to almost $3,000,000. With so much to see, we’re sure you’ll find a home (or several) to love. After all, this is where dream homes come true^SM.  

We’ve designed a guidebook, available at all Holiday Stationstores, to make planning your tour quick and easy. Another excellent resource is our website, paradeofhomes.org, where you can use our Tour Planner to save favorites and make notes about which homes you like best. Our online search engines let you plan your tour by choosing a variety of criteria, from specific school district to number of bedrooms and baths. And our keyword search will help you locate your must-have features like screen porches, granite countertops, or craftsman detailing.

We’re once again featuring five homes that were selected to represent the variety of homes on this year’s tour. Read more about them—and the hypothetical families that live in them—beginning on page 266. Then, log onto paradeofhomes.org to see virtual tours of all five “feature” homes, plus, new this year, download a podcast audio tour of each home. With the video and audio tours online, you’ll get a real feel for these homes. But you’ll still want to visit them! 

I’d also like to invite you to visit our two Dream Homes and our new Dream Home Neighborhood, where you can tour three million-dollar beauties, all helping our charitable arm, the Builders Outreach Foundation. When you visit any of these exceptional Dream Homes, you’ll be asked for a $5 tax-deductible admission (or $10 to see all three homes in the Dream Neighborhood), all of which goes to the foundation’s efforts  to build homes for deserving low-income families. Read more about the Dream Homes and our foundation in the guidebook.

And, don't forget to register for two excellent Parade of Homes^SM Cancun vacation from Northwest Airlines WorldVacations worth up to $10,000, or $10,000 worth of state-of-the-art electronics equipment from JVC Electronics. Register at each home or online at paradeofhomes.org.

All of the professional builders and associate members of the Builders Association of the Twin Cities are excited to welcome you into their homes for the 2006 Parade of Homes Fall Showcase^SM and hope you’ll return again and again. 

Curt Swanson
President, Swanson Homes
2006 President, Builders Association of the Twin Cities