Innovation in Building Products: What Do Builders Want?
A survey by Home Innovation conducted in late 2023 found that the decreasing affordability of new homes was a top business concern among home builders, outpacing the need to make homes more sustainable, improving indoor their air quality and detangling the vast offering of “connected” home electronics now available for homes.
Home Innovation fielded another survey, in late 2024, of 300 builders to uncover another layer—what supplier-offered solutions best address the affordability crisis by reducing costs of both labor and materials.
According to Home Innovation, For labor cost savings, builders prefer that manufacturers develop easier/faster to install products to the other solutions offered in the survey.
Decades ago, the concept of pre-painted and easy-to-install aluminum and vinyl siding changed the home exterior industry, providing a good example of the types of one-and-done solutions builders are seeking across all product categories. A more recent example, luxury vinyl flooring, has used the quick-and-easy recipe while improving looks and moisture resistance to fuel the massive resurgence in popularity of resilient flooring.
The findings of this survey imply that builders are awaiting more innovative products and materials to accelerate the “one-and-done” revolution, having much greater faith in this approach of simplifying the installation process (the top answer) than in “training up” installers become more proficient with existing products (the bottom three choices).