AI vs. Traditional Surveys: What Are the Most Popular Home Architectural Styles?
Published Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Staying ahead of the competition in the housing industry often includes knowing what design trends are increasingly popular. For many building product suppliers, this effort would begin with learning about what is “trending” from architects and designers from across your operating area.
Most Popular Home Architectural Designs: AI vs. Survey Data
With new technology developments in artificial intelligence, in theory, a person can query the Internet and with AI-driven web browsers and find exactly what you’re looking for, saving a lot of time and money over the “in the trenches” method of interviewing or surveying industry participants. We put this theory to the test and AI gave us the below list of “most popular” home architectural designs. In comparison, Home Innovation Research Labs conducts the Builder Practices Survey annually among a nationally-representative sample of home builders to gather data on the characteristics of newly constructed homes.
| AI-Generated List |
Home Innovation Survey Results |
| 1. Ranch |
1. Farmhouse |
| 2. Farmhouse |
2. Modern |
| 3. Colonial |
3. Ranch |
| 4. Craftsman |
4. Traditional |
| 5. Contemporary |
5. Craftsman |
| 6. Mid-Century Modern |
6. Contemporary |
| 7. Mediterranean |
7. Colonial |
| 8. Barndominium |
8. French Country |
| 9. Cape Cod |
9. Country |
| 10. Bungalow |
10. Cape Cod |
Detailed Survey Results: “Please list the architectural style of homes your company built last year.”
For this new question included in the 2024 survey, a blank space was given to write up to 3 responses. Nearly 1,000 responses were recorded—of these, a total of 52 different home architectural styles were given. The table below represents top 10, ranked by the percentage of builders listing each style and weighted based on each builder's volume of homes built.
Survey questions with open-end responses, like this one, allow respondents to use their own words, and they are also free from the potential bias of using outdated or poorly-informed, pre-populated lists.
Here are the remaining 42 mentions, all of which had 3% or fewer respondents listing them. Some of these are variants of the categories listed in the top 26 above, but many are unique.
Coastal | Transitional | Mountain/Cabin/Lodge | Cottage | Mediterranean | Southwest | Custom | Classic | Acadian | Tudor | Spanish | Prairie | Bungalow | Standard | Beach | Northwest | Western | New Orleans/Creole/Cajun | Tuscan | Arts & Crafts | Rambler | European | Chalet | Timber Frame | Mission | English | Florida | Rustic | Historic | Pueblo | Victorian | Log | Split-Level | Conventional | Plantation | A-Frame | Key West/Island Style | Split-Foyer | New England | Mid-century Modern | Georgian
Key Takeaways
The housing market continues to hold on to housing styles from the past, whether it be nostalgia, cultural preference, or the need fit into the area’s existing building landscape. Four of the top six styles have been popular in the U.S. for a century or more—Farmhouse, Ranch, Traditional, and Craftsman. Two newer styles made the top six: Modern and Contemporary. While there are similarities in the AI-generated list and the survey results, AI misses styles like Modern, Traditional, French Country, and Country, and falsely inflates the popularity of styles reported by 3% or fewer respondents including Mid-Century Modern, Mediterranean, Barndominium, and Bungalow.
The sheer breadth of styles reported in this study evidences that the U.S. housing market is not a candidate for a “one size fits all” solution. A sports car, SUV, or pickup truck may not look out of place in any neighborhood in the country, but the same cannot be said of housing styles. The desire for individual expression and customization has been flagged as an inhibitor of innovation in housing. From the findings of this research, it seems like this market still chooses individualization over innovation in housing style. My 30 years of experience as a construction marketing researcher supports the notion that the market rewards suppliers whose innovation supports personalization of housing choices.
These are just some of the highlights of the rich, detailed data provided by Home Innovation’s Builder Practices Reports, which span nearly 50 different building product categories.
If you want to more fully understand the preferences and demand in your product category, and your competitors’, market by market, then you need the 2024 Builder Practices Report. Not only does this report show detailed building product demand metrics, but the data can also be segmented by architectural style, geography, and more. Contact us today.