Overcoming Barriers to Innovation in the Home Building Industry

Authors: Boland, Jerry     Minster, Bryan     Grauer, Cara     Hunt, Stacy     Grable, Juliet     RNN Architects     Confluence Communications     Office of Policy Development and Research     U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development    

This study seeks to understand the impediments to development and diffusion of innovative technologies in the homebuilding industry. The research builds on a 2005 HUD-sponsored study with the same title, Overcoming Barriers to Innovation in the Home Building Industry. To gather information about the changing situation for housing innovation, in the summer of 2021, HUD sponsored four expert panels that focused on how education needs, risk, industry fragmentation, and behavioral factors and biases affect housing innovation. Participating experts discussed the current landscape of innovation in housing technology and process, identified barriers that continue to thwart innovation, and explored opportunities for collaboration and future research. A major focus was to identify strategies that are already working and opportunities to disseminate those strategies, such as Federal incentives that support the adoption of new technologies. The report presents findings from a literature review and the expert panels and concludes by listing challenges from the 2005 report that remain unresolved today.

Publication Categories: Publications     Housing Production and Technology     Building Methods     Regulation and Housing Industry