New Home Insights Podcast

Spring is a critical time of year for the housing market. The weather warms, foot traffic surges, and builders can bank sales. It is historically the height of the market, particularly in cooler climes. At JBREC, we constantly interact with new homebuilders, resale brokers, land brokers, building products folks, and other actors in the housing space to keep thumb and forefinger on the carotid artery of the housing market. Survey leaders Dillan Krieg, Cara Lavender, and Jody Kahn walk us through sales, incentives, buyers, strategies and tactics, what’s working and what’s not, and what headwinds have been heaviest in these unsettled times. And, as a special treat, we spend a little time with the legendary Jody Kahn, who shares some lessons learned from a storied career spanning almost forty years and still counting.

PulteGroup CEO Ryan Marshall brings clarity, candor, and—since it is in the name of the show—insight into the latest episode of the New Home Insights podcast. You can tell he is not eager to talk about himself, but Ryan has a great story to tell. He shares his humble upbringing and early life lessons before dishing the inside scoop on running one of the biggest homebuilders in the country.

The best ideas are the ones that seem obvious—“Why didn’t I think of that?” Sean Dobson saw the pile-up coming before the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) crashed the housing market. Sean and his company, Amherst, built a model to assess the true value of every home in America and bet right on what followed the GFC. Sean then had another great idea. Families who were foreclosed on were pushed out of the for-sale market but still needed a suitable place to live. So Sean pivoted to single-family rental (SFR) in the early days when there was still plenty of doubt from investors and market watchers. Today, Amherst is a diversified financial services company for some of the largest investor entities in the world; think pension funds, major endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds. SFR remains a key focus. Sean shares his insights on the SFR market, housing supply and NIMBYism, housing affordability, off-site construction, and more. Here are some highlights from the latest New Home Insights podcast episode.

Most of us, even the CEO of a major homebuilder, don’t have a master plan for our lives. Sometimes, fate takes us to a place we never thought we would be. Sheryl Palmer’s journey started as a young advertising expert at McDonald’s, wound through homebuilder Del Webb, and eventually put her at Morrison Homes when it merged with Taylor Woodrow. Thirty days after that marriage in 2007, new builder Taylor Morrison asked her to take the reins. She hasn’t checked her rearview mirror since. Sheryl Palmer, Chairman and CEO of the sixth-largest homebuilder in the country by volume, joins us for this episode of New Home Insights.

Zillow is the unquestioned king of the existing home space, but it is not just about matching buyers with a resale. Zillow is big in the new home world as well. The company is partnering with homebuilders to empower them to reach potential buyers better, joining the melee for a buyer segment that often doesn’t realize they have other options. Qadra Evans is the Director of Industry Relations and Sales for New Construction at Zillow. Qadra helms Zillow’s efforts to help homebuilders use Zillow to expand their reach and put them on the radar of homebuyers who are not always reachable. Plus, we have some bold predictions for the 2025 housing market! Let’s review some highlights from my chat with Qadra on the latest episode of the New Home Insights podcast.

In April, the New Home Insights podcast looked at how the spring selling season was shaping up with some of our resident market experts, and you loved it. It was one of our most listened-to episodes. So, in this episode, we are joined by the JBREC survey team—Jody Kahn, Cara Lavender, and Dillan Krieg—to review 2024 and look forward to how the housing market is shaping up. They dig into a wide range of results from our monthly surveys of new homebuilders nationwide and distill that into an array of trends and insights.

With an election days away, politics is top of mind for almost everyone. So, now seemed like a good time for the podcast to delve into the politics and policies that impact housing. David Howard is the CEO of the National Rental Home Council (NRHC), which advocates mainly for the single-family rental (SFR) sector. David walks us through the ins and outs of national, state, and local housing policies. We had a wide-ranging conversation primarily focused on the rental market, but we also touched on the for-sale world.

John Burns, Founder and CEO of John Burns Research and Consulting, shares his expertise on housing market trends and future predictions. He reflects on long-term cycles and significant events affecting real estate, discussing the impact of rising mortgage rates on affordability. The conversation dives into the evolution of the single-family rental market and the demographic shifts between millennials and baby boomers, emphasizing the pressing housing challenges. They also explore innovative solutions like manufactured housing and the growing demand for density and urban amenities in suburban areas.

Don Mullen, the founder and CEO of Pretium, a major real estate investment firm, dives into the transformative world of single-family rentals (SFR). He shares insights on how data-driven strategies are reshaping investment decisions, enabling direct investments in fragmented assets. The discussion covers innovative financing solutions for home builders, especially during downturns, and highlights the critical role of rental communities in tackling America’s housing challenges. Mullen’s expertise sheds light on the evolving housing landscape and the importance of technological advancements.

Big builders seem to be getting bigger every year. Growth might have some drawbacks, but for the most part, it makes a builder strong. Think operational efficiency, expanding your pipeline, access to capital, depth of skills, and expertise. You can grow organically, but you can grow faster through a smart merger or acquisition. That’s where Rich Moriarty comes in. Rich has been in investment banking for 35 years, much of that at financial behemoth Citibank. He co-founded Vestra Advisors last year and hasn’t skipped a beat, quickly becoming a key player in the homebuilder public finance and mergers-and-acquisitions (M&A) space. Join us for the latest episode of the New Home Insights podcast, where Rich walks us through the nuts and bolts of M&A, the strategy, the market conditions, the outlook, and more.