homeforsale · Product Vision & Strategy

Two homes at Cerro Gordo, sold on the strength of the place itself

A beautiful, story-driven marketing website that sells two next-door homes at Cerro Gordo — a 14-home cooperative on 1,000 acres of protected mountains, meadows, and forest above Dorena Lake near Cottage Grove, Oregon. The site conveys what no MLS listing can: the land, the community, and the life that comes with the house — attracting buyers who value that enough to pay a premium for it. Built once, configured per property: Mark's house lists first (2027), Paul's follows (2028).

Last updated August 5, 2026Living document — the anchor for all product decisions

The Problem

Standard listings flatten what makes these homes valuable

MLS listings and agent template sites flatten every property into the same grid of photos, beds/baths, and comps. These homes' real value is the situation — conservation land access, an established intentional community, mountain setting — which standard listing channels cannot communicate.

Without a dedicated site, the homes get priced and perceived like ordinary rural Lane County houses, and the buyers most likely to pay a premium — people actively seeking this kind of life — never feel what makes it different. The cost of not solving it is measured directly in sale price.

Target Users

Who the site serves

Persona	Description	Primary need
Premium lifestyle buyer	Relocator or second-home buyer actively seeking nature, land access, and/or intentional community; often researching online from afar	Feel the place — imagery, video, story, and honest detail about how living at Cerro Gordo actually works
Sellers (Mark, then Paul)	Owners of the two adjacent homes, selling a year apart	One system that serves either home with a content/config swap, not a rebuild
Listing agent	Whoever represents each sale	A site that amplifies the listing, feeds them qualified leads, and doesn't conflict with their own marketing obligations

Product Principles

Five commitments, in priority order

When principles conflict, the higher one wins.

Story over specs. Sell the life and the land first; square footage supports the story, never leads it.
Imagery carries the page. The photography, video, and drone footage are the product; design and copy serve the media, not the other way around.
Fast everywhere. Big media must still load fast on mobile and rural connections; premium feel dies with a spinner. Edge delivery and aggressive image/video optimization are non-negotiable.
Two homes, one system. Every feature is driven by per-property configuration and content. Nothing hard-coded to one house.
Accurate and compliant. Fair-housing-safe language — describe the property and lifestyle, never the desired buyer — no misrepresentation, agent/brokerage attribution where required.

Non-Goals

What we won't do

Not a real estate platform. Exactly two properties, ever. No search, no multi-listing anything.
No CMS or admin backend. Content lives in the repo as structured config + assets; edits are commits.
No transactions on-site. No offers, no scheduling engine, no payment anything — inquiries route to the seller/agent.
Not a replacement for the MLS or the agent. The site complements the official listing; it doesn't try to be it.
Not marketing Cerro Gordo membership. The community context is explained and linked (cerrogordo.net), but recruiting members is the co-op's job, not this site's.
No user accounts, no comments, no community features.

Strategy

Competitive landscape

Alternative	Strengths	Weaknesses	Our differentiator
MLS / Zillow / Redfin listing	Massive reach, buyers already there	Generic template; community/land story invisible; photos compressed	The site is where the listing links to — reach from MLS, story from us
Agent-provided single-property site	Cheap/free, agent handles it	Templated, slow, forgettable; same skin as every other listing	Custom design craft, video-first, community narrative
cerrogordo.net itself	Authentic community context	Not a sales vehicle; can't market an individual home	We link to it for depth; our site is purpose-built to sell one home

Key differentiators

The community is the product. No competing listing can offer 1,000 acres of conserved land and an established cooperative next door. The site makes that tangible.
Cinema-grade media. Professional photography, video, and drone footage presented in a design built around them.
Two adjacent homes over two years. A returning audience: buyers who miss Mark's house are the warmest possible leads for Paul's. Cross-promotion is designed in from day one.
Design iterated with intent. Stitch-assisted design exploration, not a theme purchase.

Roadmap

Three phases, two launches

Now · Q3–Q4 2026

POC using Paul's house content: property config model, design system via Stitch iteration, media pipeline (images + video), deploy to Cloudflare Pages.

Success signal: a live, beautiful, fast site for one property that both brothers would be proud to publish.

Next · 2027, aligned to Mark's listing

Swap in Mark's content, custom domain + SEO, lead capture (inquiry form/email routing), agent coordination, launch alongside the MLS listing; his Cloudflare account set up as needed.

Success signal: site live before listing day; inquiries flowing to Mark and the agent.

Later · 2028

Repurpose for Paul's house; carry over the audience from Mark's sale; "sold" archive state for Mark's.

Success signal: second launch is a config/content change measured in days, not a rebuild.

Success Metrics

How we'll know it's working

Metric	Target	Timeframe
POC live on Cloudflare Pages	Deployed and shareable	Q4 2026
Performance (Lighthouse, mobile)	≥ 90 performance with full media	At POC
Site live relative to Mark's listing	Live before listing date	2027
Qualified inquiries via site	Meaningful share of showings sourced/warmed by the site (ask everyone "did you see the website?")	During each listing
Sale outcome	At or above target/list price	Each sale

Risks & Open Questions

What we still need to resolve

Co-op dynamics of the sale: Does buying at Cerro Gordo involve community membership, approval, or agreements a buyer must accept? This shapes both the funnel and the messaging — it must be presented honestly (it's a filter and a feature). Needs an answer from the co-op's actual process.
Agent contract overlap: Listing agreements often cover marketing. Coordinate early so the custom site is written into the plan, the required brokerage attribution appears, and there's no duplicate/competing property site splitting SEO.
Fair housing compliance: "The type of buyer" thinking is fine as strategy but must never appear as copy. Describe the property and lifestyle; never describe or exclude people.
Video delivery: Cloudflare Pages can't serve large video well — decide between Cloudflare Stream, R2, or YouTube/Vimeo embeds early, because it constrains the design.
Drone footage legality: Footage used to sell a house is commercial use — the drone operator needs an FAA Part 107 certificate.
Domain strategy: Per-house domain vs. one umbrella domain reused for both sales; SEO takes months to ramp, so this decision is time-sensitive.
Photo/video licensing: Confirm the photographer's license covers web marketing use.
Timing drift: Listing dates ("next year", "the year after") will move; the system must be ready early and cheap to keep warm.

Capabilities

Work underway, traced to this vision

POC phase · Q3–Q4 2026

#1Property Configuration Model — two homes, one system: per-property config schema, lifecycle states, config-only property switch
#2Story-Driven Design System — Stitch-iterated direction, narrative page architecture, imagery-first components
#3Media Pipeline & Delivery — image optimization, video delivery decision (Stream/R2/embed), per-property media manifests
#4Edge Deployment & Performance — stack scaffold on Cloudflare Pages, CI with PR previews, Lighthouse ≥ 90 mobile enforced

2027 phase · Mark's listing

#5Lead Capture & Inquiry Routing — inquiry form and email routing to seller/agent (requirements groomed closer to phase)
#6Launch & Listing Coordination — domain/SEO strategy, agent attribution, fair-housing compliance pass, cross-sale audience carryover