Building Community, Driving Sales: The Strategy Behind Master-Planned Success

In this episode of PlotLines, we sit down with Monaca Onstad, Founder and CEO of OnPlace, for a conversation about how placemaking and lifestyle strategy are becoming central pillars of modern real estate success.

With more than 20 years of experience and a client roster that spans the country, Monaca shares how master-planned communities are evolving from static developments into vibrant, high-performing ecosystems.

Monaca launched OnPlace with a simple yet transformative idea: when you lead with lifestyle, everything else follows. As she explains in the episode, the old playbook of “build the amenities and they will come” is outdated. Instead, today’s successful communities are built around real people, focusing on their priorities, challenges, and routines.

That means starting with the buyer, not the blueprint. What do they need to feel connected? What are the friction points in their day-to-day lives? While “amenity wars” are real, Monaca emphasizes that flash alone isn’t enough. Instead of overbuilding for optics, OnPlace focuses on amenities that meet real needs and encourage authentic use. As Monaca puts it, “It’s not about perfection, it’s about people.” That perspective is resonating across the industry, especially in markets where competition is tight and differentiation is key.

Monaca closes the episode by offering her rewrite of the current real estate narrative:
“Master-Planned Communities: Synergy Between Lifestyle and Marketing Fuels Sales.”
Because when you lead with lifestyle, you’re building connection, culture, and community.

Tune in to hear why Kurt would rewrite the headline as, “Unprecedented underwriting evaluation for coworking: new methodology created. Albert Einstein, back from the dead, saves the world.”