What does 75,000 builders gathering in one place tell us about the future of homebuilding? In this episode of Ten Minute Talks, Allison LaForgia speaks with John McManus about the energy, innovation and cautious optimism shaping today’s market. From stronger model home traffic to renewed buyer interest, momentum may be building, but challenges remain.
In this episode, John breaks down the biggest trends, from integrated software platforms to advanced construction materials that accelerate build cycles and reduce costs. He also explains how data is reshaping operational efficiency, and how policy decisions could impact builders’ ability to deliver affordable homes.
#HomeBuildingTrends #InternationalBuildersShow #HousingMarket
In this episode, John breaks down the biggest trends, from integrated software platforms to advanced construction materials that accelerate build cycles and reduce costs. He also explains how data is reshaping operational efficiency, and how policy decisions could impact builders’ ability to deliver affordable homes.
#HomeBuildingTrends #InternationalBuildersShow #HousingMarket
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00:08John, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of 10-Minute Talks.
00:14Great to be with you, Allison.
00:17So, John, you just came back from the industry conference.
00:22The International Builders Show is an absolutely massive conference with tens of thousands of people from multiple countries and multiple
00:34brands.
00:35So I know that there's a lot that goes on at this conference, and it's sort of the mecca for
00:41home building, it seems like.
00:43What highlights did you come out of the conference with from a content perspective?
00:49Sure. And for those who don't know, you described it well.
00:52It feels like I crossed this convention between, say, a local World's Fair and a 700,000-foot shark tank
01:04with a festival atmosphere.
01:06So you have roughly 75,000 registrants.
01:10You have 17,000 exhibitors of everything from hardhats to power hammers to entire wall trust systems to AI-powered
01:21tech stacks to run multi-hundred million dollar home building firms.
01:26All of them locking in with each other in the aisles and in the corridors, in the restaurants, everywhere, trying
01:36to figure out what's going on in the housing market, the new home market, listening to one another and learning
01:43from one another.
01:44That's really sort of their purpose for having gathered in Orlando this year.
01:51And beyond that, you know, beyond the size, what kind of came through over the few days I spent there
01:58was the vibe.
02:00The vibe in early 2026, as in early almost every year, is about trying to feel like there's a fresh,
02:12clean slate for all of the participants to look forward rather than to look backward.
02:20They're trying to put 2025 behind them because that was a year full of headwinds and challenges.
02:30The rate of sales was lower than expected.
02:33The pricing that had to take place for homes to sell at all meant big discounts and low to no
02:45margins for many of the months.
02:47And so there was a lot of a lot of gutting it out and grinding it out over 2025.
02:52And so people came into 2026 in this gathering with a feeling like at least this year should get a
03:02good shot at starting off on a positive note.
03:07At the same time, people literally come from all over the country, many, many more private home builder companies than
03:17the public companies, because the private home builders are two things.
03:24One is that they have more urgencies and more motivation to listen to one another about what may be working,
03:33what may work with customers, what kind of product, what designs, floor plans, elevations, what size homes,
03:42what types of property are going to be more appealing, what types of property are going to be more appealing
03:47versus those that the peers are out producing.
03:51You want to find a way to distinguish yourself to stand apart with a product line that you don't have
03:59everybody else crowding into.
04:01So the vibe at the conference is still kind of very, very cautious.
04:10And you could say cautious optimism, or you could say cautious over optimism.
04:15It's kind of a known in home building that home builders have a particular kind of personality.
04:23They're either very optimistic that things are going to go great or else they're kind of inclined to be in
04:31a fetal position, thinking that things will never get better again.
04:34So this year we find, you know, that there's some trends in the market, particularly at the end of December
04:44and coming into January that showed traffic to the new models and traffic to the websites and actual sales started
04:55to pick up a little bit.
04:57They had some help from interest rates.
04:59They had some help from customers who have been on the sidelines for so long that they're just the customers
05:06and households themselves are waiting for the right moment to come back into the marketplace and feel as if they're
05:14getting a good value.
05:16So how does that sound in terms of a scene setter for the conversation here?
05:22It sounds like a really great place to start the conversation.
05:26And it's interesting to hear you say that vibe of almost cautious optimism.
05:33We've seen some brighter headlines around the housing market in general at the end of 2025 and early in 2026.
05:43So it's very interesting to me and I will say makes me cautiously optimistic that the trend will follow suit
05:53for home building.
05:54So you mentioned some of these trends that we should keep an eye on and some of the trends that
06:00came up during the actual conference.
06:03In your conversations with some of the different technology companies and builders that you were having while you were on
06:11site, what are some trends that you're specifically watching as we head further into 2026?
06:17Oh, great questions.
06:20You know, operations, the set of workflows really that go into operations and home builder, home builders are a very
06:33complex kind of corporation.
06:36They're a complex company because they're in everything from construction and production and manufacturing to heavy duty capital finance to
06:50retail to customer relations to design and product concepting to land buying.
07:03There's a lot of different companies, there's a lot of different company types of business within a home building company.
07:08So where the focus is on now for companies is to try to be the most efficient and integrated set
07:23of workflows possible,
07:25which means to have no time and no money that's wasted from the time of the investment in the land
07:34to the production of the design of a floor plan,
07:39a home and a community to the opening of a community to sales and marketing to the customer care that
07:48goes afterwards.
07:49So all of those different workflows have people that are team members that are part of it that historically have
07:59worked in silos.
08:00Okay.
08:01They've done their job very well, fulfilling tasks and doing their job, but really having very little understanding of a
08:14smooth relationship from beginning to end.
08:18So where we have the trends now in both the physical real world materials, for instance, paneling and siding and
08:32roofing materials and all the construction materials are about trying to make it so that the construction cycle will go
08:42faster.
08:42The materials are the materials are easier to assemble, the materials are easier to assemble, they fit together on a
08:51site much more speedily and with fewer people.
08:56And then they tend to work because of the building science innovations, they work very well to create an envelope
09:05and a set of systems that make a house work quite a bit better than they could have done 10
09:11years ago.
09:11Now, the other part of it is that's the physical materials, but now you have the software part of it,
09:18the software and the data part of it.
09:19And these businesses are being broken down from the very, very beginning of the cycle.
09:27You know, the first dollar that is spent on inquiry into whether a land parcel is viable, what is going
09:36to be able to accommodate in terms of the density and things like that.
09:40So from that first dollar to the closing of a community months or years later, they now have the ability
09:50to capture data related to every single piece and part down to the subatomic material.
10:03So that they now have a bill of materials for everything from, you know, the metal in the lock systems
10:12and the wiring and the copper wiring and the all the different products are now in all these zeros and
10:21ones that add up to data points that are being managed for the first time in a cohesive work stream.
10:27That is all about velocity and efficiency in terms of the money.
10:34So where we are now is that these exhibitors are showing the builders materials that install and assemble faster.
10:46And then there's across the floor or in another hall, you've got software providers who are providing big dashboards that
10:58show how all these intricacies, you know, in a home construction process fit together, how they can be managed together,
11:06how people can be accountable across the whole process and make it so that the builder can spend less
11:14That's to produce more value for a homebuyer.
11:18That makes sense.
11:19It does.
11:20It does.
11:20It does.
11:21And I want to end with a question, which I did not mention to you in our little prep conversation.
11:25So I'm going to toss this one out there in that we're coming right off of the State of the
11:32Union address, where the Trump administration specifically mentioned housing, albeit very briefly and not in as much detail as I
11:41think we had as an industry been hoping for.
11:44But the administration does continue to highlight homebuilders and the need to build more.
11:52And I wanted to see what your read was at this big conference, if there was positivity behind the sentiment
12:01that it is important to continue to invest in homebuilders and homebuilding in the country.
12:08Another really good question, Alison, and I think that the experience and history in this business shows that, you know,
12:19there are policy periods.
12:21There are policy regimes.
12:23There are big initiatives that can be pronounced from a government or federal level.
12:32But there's a phrase that all the real estate is local.
12:36OK, so all real estate is local.
12:37The homebuilders have constantly been looking to work with federal agencies and resources to try to have a mutually beneficial
12:51relationship between the construction field and what the entire national capability is in terms of producing more.
13:01And the fact that they are and the fact that they are privately held companies that have to pay their
13:08bills.
13:09They have to pay people.
13:11They have to pay for materials.
13:12They have to invest well ahead of construction in land assets and development.
13:19So there's a very, very kind of delicate balance between the ability of a homebuilding company in and of itself,
13:29let alone all of them together to get, you know, sort of motivated to build more.
13:39They would like nothing more than to build more because that's what they're in business to do.
13:44We need to also make it so that the barriers for households to pay for the new homes is lowered.
13:58Households need more capability to make a down payment, to make monthly payments, to match their household income and their
14:09wherewithal to the ability to have this dream of homeownership.
14:14So homebuilders want nothing more than to be a part of the solution to this American dream that we are
14:21talking about.
14:22But in terms of the state of the union, it's the builders have to look at their they're in a
14:29moment where they have to look at two things.
14:31One is surviving as a going concern as a company.
14:35And many private builders are in a stressed and constrained environment trying to survive.
14:43Larger companies have more resources and capital.
14:46They have a little bit better ramp way in terms of what they pay for capital.
14:51But the whole business is is it is really dependent on the ability to show that you can meet a
15:00market.
15:00You can meet the market for a homebuyer and you can also continue to generate what you need to to
15:07pay the bills and to pay stakeholders and shareholders to keep the company going.
15:12So that's really what the balance is. And there can't be a a legislated measure to force production if it
15:23is going to run counter to the ability of the business to stay as a viable viable going concern.
15:32So we're we're in a point where the builders have to keep their heads down and try and try to
15:38keep finding customers.
15:39And they also have to be looking long term at how their own cost of doing business can be streamlined
15:48and made more efficient using materials and processes and data to make it so that they can bring down their
15:57cost curve for those households.
15:59And that's when there'll be a balance. It's when there's a ability to lower that cost curve for the asking
16:06house asking price of houses and then to raise the ability of the household to make that down payment and
16:13then continue making monthly payments so that they can earn their way to homeownership.
16:19John, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of 10 minute talks and for talking to me,
16:25not only about the international or international builders show, but also about highlights from the conference trends that you're keeping
16:32an eye on and a little bit more information on what we should be looking at coming out of that
16:39state of the union address.
16:40I'm sure there's much more that I'll have to talk to you about in the near future.
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