New Home Insights Podcast

This episode of the New Home Insights Podcast delves into the intricacies of land banking, a crucial component of the real estate industry, with insights from Kate Kaminski, the COO of Walton Global. Kate shares her journey from the home building industry to her pivotal role at Walton, a company that has significantly influenced land banking in North America since its shift from Canada to the US in 2006. Walton Global, a family-owned enterprise for over 45 years, specializes in land asset and investment management, focusing on raising capital globally to invest in various land assets, primarily in the southern United States.

Every year, the housing sector eagerly awaits the spring selling season. With the holidays in the rearview and the weather warming, it’s time to buy. If you are a purist about seasonal starting dates, it is not technically spring yet, but don’t be that way. Jody Kahn and Dillan Krieg are surveying homebuilders monthly for John Burns Research and Consulting. They keep tabs on the housing market nationwide and at a granular level. We chatted with both of them on the latest episode of the New Home Insights podcast, so tune in for some spring selling season insights.

“Lifestyle” is one of the hottest concepts in new home sales and marketing. At its core, it means designing homes that not only have a specific buyer in mind but a buyer who knows exactly what they want and where they want it. It relates to both community and home. Lifestyle is about offering the right rooms and features in a home and the right amenities—schools, retail, parks—in a community. It is your identity wrapped up in your home and your neighborhood. Building on our sales and marketing focus from our previous episode of the New Home Insights podcast with Stephanie McCarty of Taylor Morrison Homes, we chat with Caroline Simmel, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Empire Communities’ Georgia and Tennessee region. Caroline and her colleagues are all about lifestyle, but she also discusses trends and preferences, processes and methods with us.

The concept of “brand” can be a bit vague. At its core, it is a service or product that some part of the public can identify as uniquely yours. It is what you do, what you provide. It sets you apart, and people want it. Think Apple and iPhones; think Lululemon and translucent leggings. Or think Google and mapping software that lets you know there’s a Starbucks on the street where you are about to turn right. (Hey, Google, there is always a Starbucks at the corner. You’re not helping.) Taylor Morrison is one of the biggest home builders in the nation. A few years ago, they wanted to refine their brand. Stephanie McCarty is Taylor Morrison’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. CEO Sheryl Palmer tapped Stephanie a few years ago to refine and modernize the builder’s brand. Stephanie’s mission is to ensure home shoppers know what they can expect when considering a Taylor Morrison home. On this episode of the New Home Insights podcast, I talk brand with Stephanie, and tons more. We get into buyer segments and market niches, media usage and strategies, data analytics and market research, and online and in-person sales strategies.

Scott Laurie and Olson Homes know that you have to be smart when you are one of the smaller fish swimming in the sea of big fish. You have to be nimble. You have to play the long game. You have to be omnivorous. You have to seek opportunity where others may not see it. Olson Homes is a Southern California builder with a laser focus on what they build best and where they will sell best. However, the lessons learned from Scott’s experience as a small builder are universal.

The pandemic taught many lessons. In housing, one was that disruptions in the things we build homes with can, unsurprisingly, bring the industry to its knees. As 2023 draws to a close, we ask: Are we finally past all of that—the rising prices, broken supply chains, and interminable waits for everything from a garage door to window latches that forced builders to wait weeks to sell a home that was otherwise ready to go? Can we finally stop using the phrase “post-pandemic” and just move on? Matt Saunders, JBREC’s Senior Vice President of Building Products, lives, eats, and breathes this world. On the latest episode of the New Home Insights podcast, he joins me to walk us through the latest in building products and trends in remodeling and discuss the future of these spaces.

The real estate broker is the conduit between most people and the biggest purchase of their life—a home. Mark McLaughlin led Pacific Union International, one of the best upmarket brokerages in California, and now is the Chief Real Estate Strategist for Compass, one of the best and biggest brokerages in the nation. He is not just a broker. As the title implies, he is a strategic and visionary thinker who views the brokerage world from far above. On the latest episode of the New Home Insights podcast, Mark takes us through some key questions facing the brokerage community now and in the future.

Do not call Kyla Scanlon a social media influencer. She is a social media educator. Through a swelling number of followers on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, Kyla has built a reputation as someone who can accessibly explain complex economic and financial concepts to a primarily Gen Z audience hungry to better understand the complex world around them. That sounds like the kind of person we want on the New Home Insights podcast. Kyla thought so too, so tune into this episode.

Call us obsessed with the 55+ housing space, but we do follow the demographics. The 55+ space enjoys a population bulge that has at least another decade run to it. This has enticed many folks to dip a toe in the water, but fewer have taken the full-body plunge. Though it is fueled by the demographics, the 55+ space is filled with savvy buyers and ever-changing wants and needs. This is definitely one of those “you need to do it right or don’t do it at all” things. It's the definition of high risk but high reward. Deborah Blake, Founder and Principal of The Ipsum Group, has been doing it right for a long time. From Sun City to Solera and beyond, Deborah has been in the trenches of age-qualified communities. She joins the podcast to discuss the kinds of homes you should build, what you should include in them, the amenities, the marketing, and the consumer. If you want to learn the tricks of the trade in this tricky housing space, spend the next hour with Deborah Blake.

When Meritage Homes CEO Phillippe Lord took over the helm of one of the biggest home builders in America, he was almost immediately faced with an existential crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic was unlike anything in living memory. After ensuring everyone in the Meritage family was safe and stayed that way, Phillippe realized they would have to change to navigate this new world. Not only would they need to change due to the current crisis, but they would need to embrace permanent change and ingrained flexibility as the surest way to manage long-term success. Phillippe joins New Home Insights podcast host Dean Wehrli on the latest episode.

With those low mortgage rate golden handcuffs keeping a huge chunk of the existing home market in cryogenic stasis, the new home sector has thrived. There is even a case to be made for continued good times even if resale listings begin to rise and mortgage rates remain elevated. There are certainly hurdles ahead, but our Director of Research and Managing Principal, Rick Palacios Jr., makes the case for continued new home resilience on the latest episode of the New Home Insights podcast.

Stephanie Casper, the Chief Revenue Officer of Kiavi, joins our podcast to discuss how Kiavi is leveraging proprietary technology, in-house data models, machine learning models, and AI to make the process of borrowing money for the purposes of investing in residential real estate easier for their customers. Join us as Dean and Stephanie unpack the current dynamics of the 'fix and flip' market and the single-family rental sector. This is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology and real estate investment.

Planning officials fear them. Housing developers and builders loathe them. Ever present and hard to appease, they are the NIMBY—the “not in my backyard” anti-housing advocate. The stereotype of an angry, finger-wagging busybody always saying "no" to new housing may be an unfair stereotype, but their impact is real. Increasingly, though, there is an alternative seeking to move the needle in the opposite direction. Counter to the NIMBY crowd is the “yes in my backyard” crowd, better known as the YIMBYs. On this episode of the New Home Insights podcast, we meet one. Laura Foote is the Executive Director of YIMBY Action. With her help, we explore this movement and its strategies, failures, and successes.

Could your home survive a spin on the surface of the sun? No? A NileBuilt home could (probably). That’s over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s ghost pepper hot. That’s middle of a microwaved Hot Pocket hot. NileBuilt is a materials company taking a step into the production home world. The critical difference is NileBuilt uses a concrete material with a hyper-insulating core to build its homes. This makes their homes fire resistant, efficient, quiet, and cool. We thought that sounded interesting, so we talked with Scott Long, the cofounder and CEO of NileBuilt, on this episode of the New Home Insights podcast.

When homeowners are surveyed about which rooms are most critical to get right, the kitchen and the primary bath typically top the list. But that doesn’t make it easy. There is an ongoing battle between functionality and aesthetics, and the struggle to stay on top of trends is constant. Brian Juedes, National Vice President of Product Design at Taylor Morrison, fights this battle every day. If there are trade-offs to be made that impact the desirability of your home, you had better make the right ones. Brian has done the hard work so now, after listening to this New Home Insights podcast episode, you won’t have to.

Sean Roberts, CEO of Villa, joins our podcast to discuss what he's seeing in the ADU market and how his company is providing solutions for the current housing market shortage and affordability issue.

iBuying exploded onto the housing scene a few years ago with the potential to change how we buy and sell our homes. After Zillow and Redfin exited the sector, Opendoor now controls the lion’s share of the iBuyer market. As higher mortgage rates and the threat of economic slowdown have slowed housing in general, where do Opendoor and iBuying go from here? How will Opendoor adapt to changing market forces? Will they try new tactics and develop new strategies? What will they do more of or less of? And how will Opendoor interact with other major market players, such as new home builders? On this episode of New Home Insights, Dean Wehrli talks with Alex Toth and Derek Schairer, who manage Opendoor’s home builder program, about how Opendoor plans not only to survive but thrive as they evolve. Note: This episode was recorded on February 16, 2023

Chris Porter, JBREC's own Chief Demographer and co-author of "Big Shifts Ahead", joins the podcast to discuss how long-term demographic trends are ultimately going to shape the demand for housing. Chris shares some insights and findings from our latest white paper, which is a deep-dive on how much the US housing market is undersupplied and what would be a reasonable amount of construction to bring the US into balance.

The New Home Insights podcast is always trying to define the future of housing. Market trends, design trends, economic trends. But what about how we actually build our homes? What once seemed like something for the far-off future is here now—3D-printed homes. Century Communities is a trailblazer in the emerging world of 3D-printed homes. Genji Nakata, Executive Vice President of National Operations at Century Communities, helped us explore this world in the latest episode of New Home Insights.

Kris Maher, Senior Vice President of Design at Rancho Mission Viejo, heads up a “creative collective” that guides their master plan placemaking. Join us for some of the lessons Kris has taken to heart, and her thoughts on placemaking—not just next year, but ten years from now.