Welcome back to Ed-itorial, where we talk new construction real estate, real consumer insights, and how to stop marketing like it’s 2015.
Based on our new Audience Town consumer data, the home mover forecast fell slightly to just over 20M this year.
As a reminder, Audience Town's WhengineTM analyzes 300B consumer data events daily, covering 280M adults and 121M households. We use these insights to forecast how many people will move primary residences in a calendar year, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate.This is in-line with August numbers and reflects the general slowness that we've experienced in the market. Not good news, but not new news, either...
At our Audience Town home builder strategy forum last month, Sklar Olsen, former Chief Economist at Zillow, described the housing market as having lots of “thrash,” a term she used repeatedly. She used it to express that some markets are strong, others softening, and they’re changing quickly
So I started wondering about that word, and how the only other use of that word I recalled was for:
As a genre, thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and fast tempo. The songs usually use fast percussive beats and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead guitar work.
Most thrash metal is bad, but Metallica is very good. The housing market right now is the same way.
And while we may say it’s tough right now, Zillow reminds us that the U.S. housing market added $2.6 trillion in value this year, hitting a record $52 trillion in mid-2025.
Wait, what???
You’re still fighting for traffic, leads, and budget. Inventory is tight. Mobility feels down. Affordability is under pressure.
In other words: there's a lot of "thrash."
The headline number doesn’t tell the whole story. Builders feel the thrash on the ground every day.
Want more proof? Here's a quick pulse check on builder sentiment:
At Plan to Win, this year's home builder strategy forum, builder marketers shared what they’re focused on, and what’s keeping them up at night:
This shows that we're all feeling the "thrash." We're seeing reasons to be hopeful, but as an industry, are prepped for some continued volatility. I'm going to try to break this down a little more and offer ideas for what you can do about it.
Florida is not Ohio. Texas is not Colorado. Every builder knows this, but headlines treat housing like it's all one story. It’s not.
Right now:
📍 Florida: In-migration is propping up demand. Builders are fighting supply, not interest.
📍 Midwest: Inventory is healthier, but buyers are cautious. Confidence is the issue.
📍 Texas: Growth continues, but every price point is rate-sensitive and volatile.
Same country. Same year. Completely different realities.
National data is helpful directionally, but not for guiding the details of your strategy. Here's why: those national numbers don’t tell you who is moving, where, when, or why. Just to prove the point:
These mixed signals (or "thrash") are exactly why local context matters. The national “rebound” in contracts might not hit all markets equally.
The truth is local.
👉 What you can do now:
In Q2 2025, the median new home price ($410,800) fell below that of existing homes ($429,400) for the first time in decades.
That wasn’t luck. Builders made it happen: smaller footprints, leaner lots, smart incentives.
New construction accounted for nearly one-third of all housing market value growth in 2025, per Zillow. If you’re marketing new homes, you have the product buyers are actively turning to, especially in markets with tight resale supply.
Audience Town data revealed the following for all residential new construction this year:
In other words, new construction has a quiet advantage over used homes right now: affordability. Here’s why:
Let’s dig into that last one a bit more.
Maintenance savings are one of the most overlooked advantages of having a new home.
NAHB research shows that buyers of pre-1960 homes should expect to save nearly 1% of home value annually just for maintenance. That can be thousands of dollars every year.
For newer homes, that number is closer to 0.2%.
Former Zillow Chief Economist Skylar Olsen shared in her keynote at our recent Home Builder Strategy Forum, Plan to Win, that, “new construction is often more affordable, especially when you factor in maintenance costs.”
In a market with stalled price appreciation forecasts, the cost of being house poor is higher than ever. As Olsen explains, “If your home isn’t going to appreciate like it did in the boom years, those upfront savings really matter.”
Builders in affordable regions, especially in the South and parts of the Midwest, can offer long-term financial value that’s hard to ignore.
And when many buyers are stretched thin, affordability is a meaningful differentiator (no matter where you’re located).
👉 What you can do now:
New homes might be more available than existing, but we’re still in a supply-constrained market. Many homeowners remain locked into ultra-low mortgage rates, reluctant to sell. As a result, mobility is at a multi-decade low.
As I shared in last month's Ed-Itorial: “In 2019, 40 million Americans moved. This year, we’ll be lucky if it’s half that.”
One of the most fascinating takeaways from Skylar Olsen’s session was how moving behavior has shifted across different age groups…and what that means for how we market new homes.
In her words, there’s “a lot of potential demand in the market,” but that demand is unevenly distributed and shaped by generational factors.
Olsen shared:
👶 Gen Z and younger Millennials (late 20s–early 30s) are moving more, driven by life stage and urgency to buy.
👨👩👧 Middle-aged adults (35–54) are more static; they're often rate-locked, caregiving, or risk-averse.
👵 Boomers (55+) are quietly mobile, especially in affordable lifestyle metros like Charleston, SC.
Buyers are more pragmatic, more digitally savvy, and more financially strategic than they were even five years ago.
Employment is also a factor here. Despite RTO (return to office) rolling out across multiple sectors, remote work remains sticky. Demand continues to shift toward distant, affordable suburbs and homes with WFH-friendly features.
👉 What you can do now:
Audience Town helps you generate more traffic, and better quality leads, by allowing you to see detailed demographics about who is visiting your site, and where your best leads are coming from.
Imagine testing a new campaign, and being able to see if it drove the qualified traffic to your community. That’s the magic of Audience Town. See how it works.
Skylar nailed it: “There’s potential demand in the market. It’s uncertain...but it’s there.”
Every move matters more, and builders can’t afford to miss when demand does show up. That’s where lead quality, buyer targeting, and speed to lead matter most. At our recent forum:
It’s clear that the best marketers aren’t just chasing leads anymore; they’re looking for proof. Attribution is no longer a nice-to-have - it’s the (gold) standard.
👉 What you can do now:
💡 Audience Town’s Attribution Add-On does exactly this.
Again, I think Olsen described it well: industry thrash. (Cue Metallica!) Some metros are still booming. Others are softening. Inventory varies wildly.
Southeastern metros like Charleston are still growing. Coastal California and parts of the Midwest are pulling back. Inventory is high in some places, nonexistent in others. And no national average can help you if you’re trying to sell homes in ZIP 29492.
Market performance is increasingly uneven by sector and location. “You can’t plan by averages. You have to plan ZIP by ZIP.”
In other words, you need hyperlocal competitive intelligence to win in 2026. The good news? That’s available today from Audience Town.
👉 What you can do now:
The Builder’s Daily recently outlined four future scenarios: status quo, resilience, disruption, or collapse. Most builders aren’t betting on just one, they’re building in optionality.
That means:
“You can’t control mortgage rates,” Olsen reminded attendees. “But you can control your offer, and how well it meets this moment.”
You don’t need good national headlines. You need local signals, behavioral insight, and tools to help you act quickly.
Because there isn’t one America.
There are many.
And your America is the only one that matters.
Audience Town helps you know who's moving in your market, where, and why..