The ground under U.S. homebuilding is shifting — unevenly, unpredictably, and without clear direction.

Single-family permits have slid for six months. Builder sentiment rattles in an echochamber of negative territory. Mortgage rates occasionally make a move in the right direction, but then snap back up to hover near 7%. Insurance volatility adds to affordability stress.

Incentives, a lifeline, are also a cost drain.

It’s a moment when even Warren Buffett’s moves send shockwaves. His recent re-entry into D.R. Horton and Lennar wasn’t just a stock pick. It was a signal: scale, liquidity, and optionality matter more than ever.

For private and mid-sized builders, the message is sobering but not hopeless. There are reasons to be cautious — and reasons to act.

That tension is why we’ve built the Focus On Excellence Leaders Summit (Oct. 27-29, Four Seasons Denver) as a forum for 85 leaders to grapple with the complexity together.

Here are five aspects of today’s turbulence that make it imperative to carve out space with peers — to share tactics, test assumptions, and prepare both for the grind of now and the opportunities of tomorrow.

1. Volatility Is the New Baseline

Policy shocks, tariffs, immigration rules, and rate swings land almost weekly. One private CEO told us recently:

Every half day, there’s a new surprise. How do you plan for three- to five-year investments when you don’t know what next week brings?”

That reality makes strategy brittle if it’s built in isolation. Today’s volatility is not a blip; it’s a whack-a-mole theme and variations.

Leaders need frameworks — and peers to sharpen them with — that prepare for multiple futures at once: stagflation, recovery, policy tailwinds, or renewed contraction.

2. Velocity vs. Margin Is No Longer An Abstract Debate

Scott Cox frames the choice clearly: price to margin or price to velocity — but the market will decide.

Public builders have primarily chosen velocity, sustaining cash flow and lender confidence by absorbing margin hits. Privates, with higher equity requirements and thinner cushions, face harder choices.

Stall speed, Cox reminds us, is fatal: houses should never have a birthday.

Brookfield Residential’s digital transformation offers one answer: unify data, collapse silos, and make decisions at the high velocity of confidence. When incentives are 10–13% of the base price, modeling the impact instantly — not weeks later — is a matter of survival.

At Focus On Excellence, leaders will compare real-world responses: how to meet the market without losing the future.

3. Land Is Both the Bottleneck and the Battleground

Margins may compress, but dirt still dictates destiny. Developed lot costs have tripled over the past decade. Permitting, off-sites, and infrastructure delays stretch cycles.

TraceAir’s Ivan Lvov captures the stakes:

A one-inch grading mistake can cost $100,000 across a community. Multiply that by ten, and you’re not in the game anymore.”

Meanwhile, policy itself has become the bigger brake on supply. As Cox argues in “We Engineered This Housing Crisis”, local decisions — restrictive zoning, endless process, impact fees per unit rather than by square foot — have made single-family homes “a luxury good.” Denver’s 74,000-unit single-family deficit is just one example.

This is where leaders need to think both tactically (fee audits, more innovative district financing, early entitlement diligence) and strategically (working together to change the rules). It’s also where conversations in Denver will put operators, policy thinkers, and capital providers in the same room.

4. Capital Access Is Shifting — Again

Banks are pulling back. Alternative capital is both costlier and more heavily covenanted. Public builders can ride it out; privates have fewer levers.

That’s why Avila Real Estate Capital’s new debt fund matters. By supplying private builders with longer terms, flexible take-down schedules, and operational expertise, AREC is offering what traditional banks no longer will: options.

For smaller builders, optionality is the oxygen of survival. Having capital partners who understand the business — and can move at its speed — is as much a strategic edge as any parcel of land.

This is one of the themes we’ll explore in Denver: how to secure and structure capital for the next 18–24 months without compromising tomorrow’s growth runway.

5. Culture, Accountability, the Digital Thread Matter More

When margins shrink, people matter more. Weekley, Pulte, and Tri Pointe — all named to Fortune’s Best Places to Work list again in 2025 — prove that accountability and engagement aren’t soft skills. They’re performance levers.

Constellation’s work with Riverside and Boulder Creek demonstrates why: transitioning from siloed tools to unified platforms doesn’t just reduce costs. It creates cultural clarity. Teams know the numbers are accurate. Accountability is transparent. Excellence becomes repeatable.

And in a market where every delay erodes margins, that kind of alignment — people, process, and a digital single source of truth — is as critical as land or capital.

The Thread That Ties It Together

Taken together, these pressures point to a paradox: the future belongs to builders who can be both tactical and strategic, both operational and digital, both lean today and growth-ready tomorrow.

That’s not a solo exercise. It’s a collective one. The leaders who will emerge stronger are those who create time and space — even in a grind like this — to compare playbooks, stress-test assumptions, and learn from peers whose choices ripple across the industry.

That’s why 85 executives — from aspiring next-gen leaders to seasoned veterans with decades of scars and successes — will gather in Denver this October, not for speeches, but for candid panels, scenario workshops, and one-on-one exchanges.

The point is not prediction. It’s navigation. Not certainty, but optionality. Not waiting, but moving — together.

The Takeaway

The following 18–24 months will be a test of resilience unlike any the industry has faced since the Great Recession. But this time is different. Resale supply is locked. Households are sturdier. Builders are smarter.

Still, the grind is real: slower sales, higher costs, volatile capital, frozen buyers, fragile margins.

In that grind, the most valuable thing any leader can do is engage with peers who are confronting the same choices in real-time and learn from each other openly.

That’s what Focus On Excellence is about.

Register here for Focus On Excellence Leadership Summit & Workshop
Oct. 27–29, 2025 • Four Seasons Denver

85 peers. Three days. One purpose: to keep moving, and to move smarter.