I’m often asked why offsite home construction practices, which have been available for half a century or longer, should be expected to gain traction now. Granted, offsite solutions are not right for every project or every builder, but the industry environment seems to be evolving to favor many of these — primarily in light of the current labor and materials supply issues. Additionally, the predominant Millennial homebuying market attaches less negative stigma to factory-built or engineered housing solutions. In fact, Millennials tend to see factory-produced housing as “smarter” and more technologically advanced than traditional methods. So what’s continuing to keep builders from adopting offsite practices?
In late July 2021, Home Innovation conducted a survey of 348 home builders, repeating a question on offsite housing that we asked in similar surveys in August 2019 and September 2020.
The debate has continued for years. Gas or Electric? For a new home, the answer often centers on the tradeoffs between short-term affordability vs. long-term operating cost.
Earlier this month, Ed Hudson, Home Innovation’s Director of Marketing Research, presented “Changing Preferences for Building Products in a Post-COVID Market” at NAHB’s Leading Suppliers Council Connections meeting. He covered a wide range of findings and trends based on his analysis of long-term building products trend data, and the findings of recent national studies on buying habits of builders and households.
There has been a lot of attention devoted to off-site construction technologies over the past decade. Many builders share the opinion that off-site construction is the way homes should be built, but not as many are willing to adopt the practices themselves. Over that same time, our Builder Practices Survey shows that little growth has occurred in the use of these off-site practices listed, with the exception of wall panelization, which has seen growth in multifamily construction.
Earlier this week, Ed Hudson, Home Innovation’s Director of Marketing Research, presented “Trends and Opportunities for PVC Materials in Home Construction and Remodeling” at the PVC Formulations Virtual Summit, sponsored by AMI. The primary audience for the presentation was manufacturers of PVC materials seeking opportunities to develop new PVC-based building materials.
The year 2020 was characterized by price instability, supply disruptions and shortages, and even mandated business closures in some areas. We also saw an unexpected boost in new housing construction that started early in the year and continued. Considering these factors, we anticipated some changes in building materials purchasing patterns; only some of that anticipation played out.
Not all building materials purchase outlets did equally well during the pandemic. As the responses from our latest Consumer Practices Survey came in, we were able to examine who did well, and in which product categories. With this rich data, Home Innovation is introducing the “Purchase Location for Home Remodeling Projects” report to provide market insight for retailers and suppliers of building materials.
The biggest trademark of 2020? Change! This was true in nearly everything that affects how we live in our homes and how we interact with others. Many in the building industry found these changes to be an opportunity; others found it to be a significant threat.
With new remodeling market data available, it’s time to recalibrate building product marketing strategies for a new remodeling market trajectory.
Marketers of building materials for the remodeling industry faced early 2020 as an enigma. There were no reference manuals on how the remodeling market behaves during a pandemic. With households required to stay-at-home, and many both working and schooling their children from their homes, it forced homeowners into a lifestyle that may have proven their current homes inadequate. There were open questions that could re-define the home remodeling market.
Over the past couple decades, Home Innovation Research Labs has been tracking the popularity of new home exteriors through our Annual Builder Practices Survey. Based on the 2020 survey, we reported that brick, after a gradual long-term decline in share of new home exterior wall materials, saw back-to-back years of rebound in U.S. single-family detached homes.
In December 2020, Home Innovation conducted a survey of more than 200 builders on behalf of the Brick Industry Association to learn what they and their homebuyers value in clay brick. The findings point to a strong perception of beauty, quality, and safety for brick exteriors among builders, and an indication that their future use of clay brick is likely to remain strong with continued homebuyer demand and popularity of architectural styles they see as a “good fit” with brick.
For many, 2020 was the year that COVID-19 disrupted their lives in every conceivable way. From the perspective of homeownership, 2020 was the year we improved our outdoor living spaces; caught up on needed home repairs and improvements; organized our stuff; and made our homes more comfortable and functional places to spend time – at least that’s what the findings of our 2021 Consumer Practices Survey suggest. More than 110,000 U.S. and Canadian households participated in the Consumer Practices Survey, which was completed in December 2020, supplying us deep detail on their home and property improvement and repairs projects.