Where do you get the trusted information that keeps your residential homebuilding business ahead of the game?
Are you merely reacting or trying to see the future of our industry before it happens?
For the past fourteen years, CBUSA has made the gathering and sharing of residential homebuilding business trends and insight knowledge a priority for its elite network members.
Nine years ago CBUSA originally designed our Power 30 Conference to foster collaboration with its top spending builders and develop the combined buying strategy for the premier brands featured in our National Contracts Program.
Over the years, the conference evolved to focus on further enhancements of the National Contracts Program, a place to solicit input and direction from our members on program priorities, provide CBUSA a platform to promote new concepts, partners and services, plus provide education on relevant topics and trends for group purchasing. Take all that and layer on the networking opportunities for the best and brightest builders across our CBUSA community, and you have an irreplaceable invite-only event driving real positive change in our industry.
What is the result of independent business leaders coming together to develop a sense of how and when the future of homebuilding will happen? A chance to share that foresight with the stakeholders throughout the CBUSA network.
“As one of the early members of CBUSA, I highly recommend membership to every quality builder interested in raising his awareness with his peers locally and within the industry nationally. I have had the opportunity to participate in outstanding CBUSA symposiums held nationally, and always come away having gained knowledge and renewed optimism from my interaction with other successful builders from around the country. If there is a local chapter in your area, I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity.” – Luis Jauregui, Austin, TX & Houston, TX Chapters
Welcome to the “Power 30 2020 Roundup”
Just a couple weeks before the US was impacted by COVID-19, CBUSA was able to gather a mix of the top 30 home builders in the CBUSA Network, ranked by overall program spend, about a dozen of the change-agent companies that – excel in thought leadership, and some prospect builders from cities looking to launch new CBUSA Network Chapters.
Combine these homebuilding leaders with more than 15 premier National Manufacturing Partners, plus industry expert guest speakers and you have the coveted Power 30 Conference.
Whether it was an attendee’s first conference or the 9th year, they prioritized their busy schedule to attend. These entrepreneurial attendees run the nation’s most successful residential custom and independent home building companies, and they know their time at Power 30 will be returned tenfold in knowledge and irreplaceable collaborative business relationships.
For two days these elite builders invest in the future of their companies by taking the time to learn from one another, talk building trends and challenges, and ultimately create lasting relationships that have been helping our Network grow and become a stronger force across the nation.
The programming kicked off with a Metrostudy presented by Senior Vice President & Chief Economist, Mark Boud. The presentation dug deep into the economy and housing construction based on the world in February 2020. The 2-10 Treasury Yield Spread and all time high Corporate Debt-to-GDP predicted a recession still a few years out.
While some of Boud’s forecast got slammed by COVID-19 and our country’s low unemployment rates have now never been higher, you can still leverage many of his opportunity ideas to help drive the future of your business. For starters, technology brings new ways to build and ultimately to live in the homes desired by our communities.
New building methods can lead to reduced labor needs:
- Entekra Off Site Construction
- BMC’s Ready Frame
- Blue Homes Premium Prefab
- FullStack Modular
- Ecocor.us High Performance Energy Efficient Building
New Home Advantages Strengthened by Technology
The incentive to build new homes for the tech-forward consumer is great. Between self-driving vehicles and other new technologies, such as drone delivery, you can make sure to build your clients homes for tomorrow.
And the challenges that had been identified, still ring true if not having amplified:
While the world seems to be changing daily, as recent as Friday, May 22, the Chinese have pledged to uphold Phase One of the new Trade Deal that includes purchase of $200 Billion purchases of US goods. For our construction community, Boud noted it is more of an illusion rather than a solution. Phase One simply cancels planned tariffs and does not eliminate existing 25% tariffs on over 500 items involved in new home building and renovation, including:
- – Appliances
- – Nails
- – Lighting
- – Laminate
- – Tile
- – Cabinets
- – Other common finishes in housing made from aluminum, steel, lumber. And plastics.
New immigration laws impact our labor supply with downward revisions to population estimates that are heavily concentrated on Hispanics aged 30-59 — up to ⅓ of the loss would have been drawn to residential construction jobs. And in general, there are worries: a higher risk of unforeseen events, government instability, labor costs, tariff-related costs, reduced housing affordability, corporate and public debt.
So where are we now?
With the Power 30 Conference builder attendees alone forecasting to build 2225 homes in 2020 and do $1.02B in combined revenue, plus our target set on seven new CBUSA Chapters in Charlotte, Chicago, Orlando, Huntsville, Waco, Nashville, Birmingham/Tuscaloosa, CBUSA is primed to help its Network have the best year ever. But what does the drastically different current economy and social distancing working conditions mean to our building community?
Bill Smithers, CEO of CBUSA, had the idea to bring together some of our National Contracts Program partners to discuss the current environment and possible impacts on the residential building industry. David Kohler launched our Leadership Webinar Series in March.
“We’re talking as a company, how do we emerge from this stronger, smarter and faster and how do we actually get a little more daring, a little less predictable in this environment in terms of what we’re doing to drive innovation,” David said.
David Kohler continued, “We have this idea called ‘Kohler Strong.’ We very much need to see through the end of this and how do we emerge from this stronger, smarter, and faster? And what does that mean from a customer standpoint? We actually want to emerge from this with stronger customer relationships. We’re doing a lot of reaching out like this and other means, how do we build stronger customer relationships? How do we come out of this with stronger service levels than any of our competitors? How do we come out of that? What does that mean in building our supply chain capability to ramp as we come out of this, we also want to be stronger on the innovation front. Now is not a time to get in your foxhole and not think about the future. We have to be a little bit more daring and innovative to think about what does that future look like?”
Even though we are all hunkered down at home right now, the future looks bright for the CBUSA Network and new opportunities.
One of our biggest debuts at the 2020 Power 30 Conference was a live demo of a new SaaS product in development that simplifies the supply chain and brings enormous benefits to all three groups in our Network Builder Members, Local Vendors and National Manufacturers. We are hoping to launch a pilot program for this new software product later this year.
We wrapped our meeting with the first inaugural “Walter G Schwartz – Award of Excellence.” Wally has been a dedicated partner and believer in the concept and of CBUSA’s power buying network since National conception. From this year forward, CBUSA will award the Network Manufacturing Partner who exhibits the best service and partnership throughout the year, as determined by our members.
Our final evening we had dinner at NASCAR Hall of Fame. If you’ve never been, it’s worth checking out. (Note the great picture from the location at the top of the blog!) And stay tuned for information about our 10th Annual Power 30 Conference that will take place in Chicago, Fall 2021, where the original Power 30 Group first met.
“Power 30 2020 in Charlotte, NC was a tremendous success for CBUSA. Each year our annual conference gets bigger and better as the homebuilding industry’s finest come together to strengthen their partnerships through CBUSA. We are humbled to consistently receive feedback from attendees that CBUSA’s Power 30 Conference is regarded as one of the premier events they attend each year. A sincere thank you to all of our 2020 attendees from the whole CBUSA Team.” -Ryan Lipchek, VP of Sales
If you want to be part of our Power 30 crew, the key is using our CBUSA Network, Programs and Services to the maximum. Get engaged with our National Contracts Programs by talking to your CBUSA network representative today.
And Thank You to all our National Contract Partner Sponsors below. Together, we look forward to continue being a leader in the residential construction industry for years to come!