HMS Blog

Over the past two decades, builders have poured money into CRM platforms to understand customers and ERP systems to understand operations. Product — the plans, the specs, the materials, the variations — never got the same treatment. That's now catching up with the industry at exactly the moment margins are tightest and AI is reshaping what "efficient" even means.

Every few years, a headline declares that middle-class homeownership is over — a postwar accident that can't be repeated. It's a compelling narrative, but it doesn't hold up against what's actually happening on the ground. Homeownership hasn't disappeared. It has relocated to the markets still willing to approve, entitle, and build it.

Builder confidence just hit its lowest point since September 2025. The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index dropped to 34 in April — still firmly in negative territory, and well below the 50-point threshold that separates optimism from pessimism. Current sales conditions are softer. Buyer traffic is down. Six-month expectations have weakened.

In today's residential development market, bringing in the right brokerage partner early isn't a line item — it's a strategic advantage. The difference between a development that sells through at target pricing and one that stalls often comes down to whether market intelligence was baked into the process from the start.

The housing market is experiencing an unusual shift that's reshaping the competitive landscape for homebuilders. For the first time in years, newly built homes are competitively priced with existing homes—and in some markets, new construction is actually more affordable than resale properties.