As the world starts to open back up and the housing industry resumes full operation, it’s time to take a look at this year’s International Builders Show (IBS). With an increased focus on digital learning, networking opportunities, and informational display booths- this was one of the most exciting IBS shows in years. Increased participation from around the globe highlighted what is on the horizon for homebuilders, remodelers, and those allied with home-improving services.

In this episode, Rick reviews the “state of the building market” based on feedback from the 2023 Design & Build week in Las Vegas.

So come read/watch/listen to this episode as we delve into 2023’s IBS show recap and explore how today’s state of the market will affect all aspects of residential construction businesses!

Builder Lead Converter captures & converts leads for home builders & remodelers so they can grow sales revenue and margins. Find out how at https://www.builderleadconverter.com

 

Transcript:

Rick:  Today In Conversations That Convert, we are gonna recap the 2023 Design and Build Week in Las Vegas and give you the highlights. If you weren’t there, we’ll tell you what happened. Let’s get started.

Welcome to Conversations That Convert. Every week, we’ll spend about 10 to 15 minutes tackling relevant lead generation, marketing, and sales topics for remodelers, home improvement companies, and home builders. Conversations That Convert is brought to you by Builder lead Converter, your perfect sales assistant. And now here’s Rick and Daiana. 

Rick:  Welcome everyone to Conversations That Convert. Welcome, Daiana. How are you this afternoon? 

Daiana: I’m so excited. I’m so curious. What happened there? 

Rick:  What happened? Yes. 

Daiana: What happened there? Yes. 

Rick:  Yes. What? What are we talking about today? 

Daiana: So today is about design and construction, construction week, and it’s a recap of the Las Vegas event.

Rick:  Yeah, exactly. It was last week, January 31st through February 2nd in Las Vegas. And so I’ve always, I’ve, I’ve always used the terminology International Builder Show. But it’s now designed a construction week, and, they were celebrating the 10th anniversary of this, which of course I didn’t really know, but I figured it out now. It only took me 10 years.

So I spent yes, the majority of the week, in Las Vegas. And wanted to just bring you some of the highlights of the show. Just what are people saying from across the country, across the world, really? I met people from all different parts of the world were, were at the show. And also you know, maybe tell you about a couple of neat things that are coming up as far as new products and, and, and services specifically with one of the companies that a lot of our clientele uses. So let’s get started, shall we? 

Daiana: Yes. And if you can share about the parties and the behind the scenes. Yes. 

Rick:  I didn’t do much partying, but there were lots of parties to be had there. These are a couple of pictures from the International Builder Show Facebook page. So what you need to know is there were over 200,000 attendees. So they did send an attendance record and I think there was more attendance there. This was the most attendees since 2008.

Which is you know, when the market was in its heyday before the great, the great recession when the housing market crashed. So there are five different shows that go on during this week. So International builders show, and that drew roughly 50, excuse me, 70,000 builders from around the world. Then there was the kitchen and bath industry show. So this is anything and everything to do with the kitchen and baths.

So all of the products that are used for the kitchen and baths, were there on the show floor. All the manufacturers. You also had a lot of designers there, as well. In addition to that, there was something called the event of the international surface. So one of the days, I’m, I’m riding over to the show in the shuttle bus. And the gentleman next to me I’m talking to is from China, and his company produces surfaces like shower surfaces and bathroom vanity surfaces.

So he was, he was there at that international services event in his company in China. Had a booth set up as well. He was based in New York. And then the fifth show was the Las Vegas Winter Market, which is a furniture show. So that, again, drew designers from all over the world to come to look at what is the latest from manufacturers for furniture, in the winter for Las Vegas. So a couple of other pitches here.

This is just outdoor so it’s just, it’s enormous. So the Las Vegas Convention Center, they’ve added another wing called the West Wing. And this was really, of course, it’s only Las Vegas. So in order to connect the West Hall with the rest of like the North, central, and south Halls, what they did is they built an underground freeway, and I say underground freeway.

Freeway, literally it’s four lanes wide and they have a fleet of Teslas. So when you get off your shuttle bus, you go hop in a Tesla. The Tesla takes you through this underground freeway and will take you over to the other convention center. And so they did these Teslas just go back and forth all day running people around. I’m like, that’s, that’s lo, if that’s not Las Vegas, I don’t know what is. 

Daiana: Yeah. That’s impressive. 

Rick:  Yeah, it really, it really was neat. So this is an example of one of the outdoor vendors that were over at the north and central halls. There’s a big compound where they have a lot of outdoor vendors that are showcasing, their things. And of course, there’s food there as well. Next, here we’re showing again a lot of the vendors that came, they brought games.

So this is somebody, you know, tape measure and you had to walk backward on this two-by-four without falling off, you know, too, to measure it off and keep your tape measure on the two-by-four. This is one of the entertainments that was going on. So they had a lot of shows. Of course since this is Las Vegas, a lot of live music and, and shows specifically for builders.

Some of the new products that are coming out there. So there were over a million square feet of vendors that were, that were showing off their latest and greatest products. And you can get lost, I mean, literally lost on the show floor. Looking at all these products, they do a pretty good job of putting people, you know, creating maps and they have an app that you can use on your phone to navigate around and, and then they take and, and they’ll segment the vendors sort of by what they are.

So in this case it was a tool, a tool manufacturer, you know, showcasing, their stuff. And then they had live demonstrations, you know, as they’re building stuff. You can see here they’re using laser levels right here to install cabinetry. And to help keep things plum and square as they’re, as they’re going in. And then while I, while I was there, of course, was for the educational events, there were over a hundred different educational events, all sorts of different tracks I, I presented in the custom home and remodeling tracked. But they were very well attended. Our event had we were standing room only for our event. I think there were 250-plus people therein, in our room. And it was really fun to see also catch up with clients and see people in and around the industry as well.

Daiana: Love it. 

Rick:  Yeah, it was really, it was really neat. A couple of the highlights I saw Builder Trend is a software company that a lot of our clientele uses. So Builder Trend a couple of years ago acquired co-construct and this is all about project management software. Well, they were down there. They now have acquired two more companies, so they acquired a buying group. Where you can become a member of that buying group. Buy, buy all your materials through that company and buy them at a discount.

And then they just required a financial services company as well. So Builder Trend is really, they have a thousand employees right now. They are really becoming one of the biggest players in the industry as it relates to construction management and production management. And now, of course, they’re getting into material buying as well as financial services you know, with managing accounting for home builders and, and remodelers. So that was neat to see their booth. It was crazy busy.

Some of the market updates that I noticed are mixed. It really depends on what part of the country you are in. We saw for the most part remodelers are pretty busy, but a lot of it is backlogged with work, definitely, new opportunities have dropped off. The other thing that we noticed is that, you know, certain parts of the country, there’s, there’s a lot of cancellations.

Daiana: Mm-hmm. 

Rick:  Especially in the lower price points, the, where interest rates went up. And so it affected, it affected those people that were more sensitive to payments in the lower price point. So these people have been waiting a long time to have their home built, and while that happens, the rates go up and then they can’t afford it, so they cancel.

So this builder that went from having a really long backlog, this was in New Mexico of homes, all of a sudden now ended up with a lot of spec homes, which they have to complete. The homes, they started building and put and try to sell ’em on the market. So they’ve seen a lot of cancellations. I, but inventory overall is still pretty low.

Which was interesting to see, more or less that was the same story across the country. So I would say the outlook for 2023 is if it’s not pessimistic. I, I think most people feel like it’s going to be a worse year than 2022. Where you are and the type of product or home or remodeling services you provide will probably determine how much worse that is, but not, not many expect it to be better than 22

In the last half of 22 was pretty quiet when interest rates started to go way up. I think it’s more like 2024, maybe 2025. That we think like we’ll get through this trough here and how much the markets correct is really based on how much they went up when things were red hot. So the markets that went up and up and up and maybe where that demand has leveled off, those are seeing more of a price correction, the markets that maybe went up, but not just overly dramatic.

There still is demand there and inventory is low. Those markets probably won’t see as much of a price correction. But overall, I would say everybody, the one underlying theme that I heard loud and clear was that it’s harder to generate high-quality leads right now. That was, that was the underlying theme. Every price point, remodelers, home builders, custom builders, semi customs, it didn’t matter. Everyone was, was struggling with generating high-quality leads.

So we will be focusing on that here as we go forward as one of our topics. Talking about, you know, we’re gonna, going into the next series here. We will be discussing why builders are losing sales. And so we’re gonna break it down from the very front end, from a marketing standpoint, all the way back to like fulfillment and follow through. As, as next we’re gonna be doing a webinar here shortly, as well. Where I’m gonna be doing an encore presentation of the program I presented at the Builder Show, which was called Bidding Custom Homes and Remodeling jobs turning Estimates into a revenue stream. Really, really successful program.

Some great stuff there. We got really good feedback on it. So we’re excited to bring that to you. And then we will be doing another interview with Russ Stevens here from the Association of Professional Builders very shortly. He will be revealing some of the preliminary results that they’ve received from their annual state of the residential construction industry survey. So they call it the Source survey, and this is where they interviewed a thousand different builders from Australia and the United States. And just ask some questions in eight different categories.

So we’re, we will be diving into the advertising, the marketing, and the sales process categories and looking at where they’re doing well and also where things are not going so well. And I can tell you that high-quality leads are at top of the mind for these builders. That was the number one issue these guys are facing. So that’s one of the things we’ve spent a lot of time talking about at the International Builders Show. And we’ll talk about that again at our upcoming webinar. And that’s gonna hopefully be a week from today. So be presenting that. Yeah. So that was a quick and dirty recap. I hope everyone enjoyed it. Daiana, I wish you could be there maybe next year. 

Daiana: Yes, me too. Yes. 

Rick:  You guys have some fun. But, we thank you, and by, and the way, if anyone, any of you would like to schedule a strategy call and find out how we can help you attract, capture, and convert leads so you can pick and choose your clients and jobs. Go ahead and just click that link right below. We’re meeting with lots of builders right now especially a lot in Canada all over the United US and even New Zealand. And ironically know what’s funny, Daiana, is that it doesn’t matter what country you’re in, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, everybody’s like in the same boat.

They’re all experiencing the same thing. So you think. Oh, it’s such different geography and different governments, but all builders and remodelers are kind of saying the same thing. Things have cooled off, they’ve slowed down demand has gone down and now everyone’s getting serious about what they can do to attract, capture, and convert leads, and, and so they can pick and choose their clients and jobs. That was a very popular topic, so until next time. For my brothers and sisters in Christ, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the fellowship of God, and the love of the Holy Spirit. Be with you all always. We will see you next time on Conversations that convert. Bye-bye 

Daiana: See you soon. Bye.