Ed-Itorial Summer 2025: The Consumer Is in Control - What Are You Doing About It?

The Forecast

Based on our new Audience Town consumer data, a similar number of people are estimated to move this year as in the spring. The home mover forecast held steady at around 21M this year. This makes sense to me.

As a reminder, Audience Town's Whengine^TM 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.

The index of people moving strongly indicates that the “life changers” are the movers right now: new job, new kid, more income. My opinion is that barring economic fallout we will hover around the 20M-22M number until rates are 6% or lower. Until then the annual home mover number is probably between 20M and 30M annually, down from 40M many years ago!

Prices are finally headed down — for now — as inventory increases.

According to Housingwire, we finally saw house prices drop in July.

“The number of new-home sales in July may have only fallen slightly from a month prior, but it is meaningfully lower than a year ago, according to data released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

This is resulting in lower prices, which we are hopeful will bring more demand, but all in all you can’t make people move.

The consumer is in control now

Earlier this summer, we were in Denver at the Sales & Marketing Leadership Summit, where I spoke with some of the sharpest sales and marketing leaders in the home building world. The energy was strong. But so was the tension, because we’re all staring down the same truth:

The consumer is in control now. Not your floor plan. Not your promo. Not your CRM workflow.

The buyer calls the shots.

They’ll move when they want to or need to, not because you need to hit Q3 goals. They’ll shop where they want to: Zillow, Google, YouTube, Meta.

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And they’ll engage only if your message hits at the right moment, in the right way. And if your marketing, product, and sales experience doesn’t match what they’re used to when buying cars, clothes, or even finding a date… they’ll move on.

You can’t manufacture demand, but you can know who is buying

This is the part that’s hard to hear.

You can market all day long, but at the end of the day, you can’t make someone move. They’ll move when they have a reason. A life change. A new job. A new kid. A moment that matters to them. (We call these “life events.”)

What you can do — and what smart builders are doing — is know who is in-market…and build everything around that buyer. That means:

• The right land, in the right location
• The right product, with the right floor plans and pricing
• The right marketing, tailored to what they actually value
• The right sales strategy, that meets them where they are
• The right financing options, that keep deals from falling apart

If you don’t build for real people (not just homes, but campaigns, processes, and pricing), you’re going to struggle to convert them. It’s that simple.

This is the future of home building. And frankly, it’s how every other consumer-facing industry already works.

You’ve got 300 days and dozens of chances to get it right

Most homebuyers take nearly a year to make a move. And over those 300 days, they’ll Google you, scroll past you, click on you, tour you and maybe, just maybe, contact you.

Every one of those touchpoints is a chance to engage…or a missed opportunity.

I am certainly biased, but this is exactly why Audience Town exists, so check us out if it's interesting to you. We help you make the most of all of it:

• Foundation shows if you're generating the right traffic - and how to get more of it
• Market Assessment show's you who is buying in your markets and why
• Attribution connects the dots between your CRM and your marketing - lead by lead, channel by channel

When you know your audience, you make better decisions. About everything.

70% of home buyers consider new construction… only 18% buy

This Zillow consumer trends research stat says it all, and it should be a wake-up call.

It’s not that people don’t want new construction. They do. But only a fraction actually end up buying it. Why? Because we’re not making the journey easy or clear.

Because we’re not always building, marketing, or selling in ways that reflect them.

We don't always know who they are until it’s too late.

But here’s the good news: you can know.

They’re telling us what they want. Every search, click, tour, and quote request is a signal.

Knowing your buyer isn’t optional. It’s the job.

And don't forget, we're hosting a free, non-promotional forum for builders and you're invited.

The buyer is in control. You can’t change that. But you can change how well you know them…and how well you respond when they do show up.

And when you know your people, you can sell more homes.

Let’s make sure you do.