Each winter, a large group from Wray Ward attends Design & Construction Week. This synchronized staging of the National Kitchen and Bath Association’s Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (KBIS) and the National Association of Home Builders’ International Builders’ Show (IBS) is one of the biggest events of the year for those of us in the home and building sectors.

At this year’s show, we had the opportunity to join several residential home design and construction industry discussions. Here are some interesting takeaways.

1. During the next three to four years, the homebuilding industry has a positive overall outlook. There are economic reasons to support this, from job growth and stock market growth to tax reform, improving consumer attitudes and increasing consumer spending. We’ll certainly see another market adjustment at some point, but for the immediate future, the homebuilding industry is on an upward trajectory.
2. The United States is the only region that still uses on-site build/stick build practices instead of a modified, prefab building construction model. The prefab approach is potentially less costly and more efficient than stick build practices, and it should become more prominent in the domestic homebuilding marketplace over the next three to five years.
3. The DIY market is expected to rebound. Following 20 years of decline, the DIY market share made gains in 2017. This rebound may be due in part to low home price appreciation and rising income (causing a shift to small project remodels), an incoming wave of first-time homebuyers who do 38 percent more DIY projects, YouTube's role in making DIY projects less intimidating, and an HGTV viewership that is getting younger (those 35 and younger are 21 percent more likely to watch HGTV than the U.S. norm).
4. If there is one changing attitude among the millennial generation that builders have to contend with, it’s their relationship with or use of cars. Compared to their elders, millennials do not see having multiple cars in a single household as a necessity. Many are comfortable using ride-sharing services and sharing vehicles, and many prefer live, work and play environments where they can walk or use other forms of transportation. As a result, millennials don’t always look for the typical two-car garage during their home search. Builders must learn how to address this, as it could affect the overall square footage of homes in their portfolio. How will they replace this area?
5. Multigenerational living continues to be a trend for home remodels. This is due not just to aging parents, who are moving in with their adult children, but also adult children who are moving back into the nest.

Did you attend Design & Construction Week this year? If so, what did you learn? Let us know on Twitter @wrayward.