Summer 2025 for many U.S. homebuilders has become a slog.

Traffic is down. Costs are up. Closings have slowed. Mortgage rates remain stuck, hovering near 7%, while insurance premiums and labor volatility continue to squeeze the math. Worse still, consumer hesitance is growing, leaving many builders in limbo, waiting for a signal that may never come.

What builders can’t wait for?

Operational clarity.

In an unforgiving market—where land constraints, margin compression, and buyer ambivalence collide—homebuilders are being forced to rethink how their companies work, literally remapping their workflows and attaching meta data tags to each of tens of thousands of moving parts and handoffs.

Many discover that the root of waste, risk, and underperformance lies not in one team, but instead in the disconnectedness of all of them.

The problem? Most builders still operate their complex, multi-workflow businesses on siloed and orphaned systems—spreadsheets, legacy tools, and point solutions that don’t talk with each other.

The fix, according to a growing number of operators, is to unify everything.

It’s a shift from fragmented tools to full-platform thinking. And it’s delivering measurable impact. Builders like Riverside Homebuilders and Boulder Creek Neighborhoods are seeing faster cycle times, better margins, more transparent accountability, and a culture that runs on facts, not firefighting.

Here's a blend of insight from three key players behind these operational transformations: Sean Wilhelm, Vice President of the Business Solutions Group at Constellation HomeBuilder Systems; Clint Shipley, Vice President of Operations at Riverside Homebuilders in Texas; and Michael Sinkey, Founder and Managing Member of Boulder Creek Neighborhoods in Colorado.

Both Riverside and Boulder Creek utilize BuildTopia, Constellation’s cloud-based construction management solution, which consolidates all tasks, processes, and workflows into a single hub for homebuilding. Riverside has also adopted BuilderMetrix, Constellation’s cloud-based data platform, as a game-changing decision-support tool.

Margins, Pressure, and the Urgency to Integrate

We see it every day," says Sean Wilhelm. "Builders are squeezed between rising costs and consumer hesitancy. Incentives are back, sure—but if you're not operating lean and fast, incentives just erode your margins even further. That’s why operational visibility isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s essential."

Wilhelm and his team have worked with dozens of builders who are wrestling with increasingly complex environments: long lead times, fluctuating materials pricing, workforce constraints, and buyer uncertainty. What Constellation offers is a path toward simplification through integration.

We help builders move from decision-making based on spreadsheets, emails, and gut feel to a centralized system of record. That alone can save hundreds of hours a month across teams. But more than that, it gives executives the confidence to make proactive, strategic moves based on real-time information."

Riverside’s Journey to Platform Unification

At Riverside Homebuilders, Clint Shipley describes the journey from legacy systems to a unified platform not as a technology overhaul, but as a foundational culture shift —one that instills accountability from end to end through homebuilding’s value cycle.

By implementing BuildTopia and BuilderMetrix, we transformed our operations from fragmented point solutions into a unified and efficient platform," Shipley says. "This integration allowed us to connect departments that were previously isolated, facilitating seamless data sharing and fostering collaboration."

The payoff? Faster decision-making. Lower operational costs. Measurable profitability gains. And above all, a cultural transformation.

BuildTopia’s integration with BuilderMetrix empowers us to establish detailed metrics across all departments, enhancing accountability and driving performance improvements," he notes. "As a result, we were able to roll out incentive-based compensation tied directly to KPIs. Teams could finally see how their actions impacted company outcomes."

What Real-Time Data Unlocks in the Field

Michael Sinkey at Boulder Creek Neighborhoods saw the turning point when his team implemented BuildTopia to gain real-time visibility into cost variance and build cycle efficiency.

Now, we have cleaner information, invoicing – whether it's double paying or issuing purchase orders to know cost to construct, cost to complete, overruns – you're getting more and more data. This on a house by house or community by community level. This allows us to dive in to issues as they come up."

Sinkey describes the experience as more than data consolidation—it was cultural alignment through a common language of truth.

Sometimes it's customer satisfaction, sometimes it's costing, sometimes it's trade partner performance. With Constellation, it’s having more information that allows you to identify those objectives, and address them in a positive way."

For field teams, this meant moving from reaction to precision.

Anytime that you can look across your operation – all your different communities, all your different construction managers, etc. – and focus on cycle time, or open item, or warranty, a solution like BuildTopia helps you create accountability among team members and management alike.”

From Visibility to Velocity

Visibility, all three executives agree, is the foundation, but velocity, agility, and nimbleness are the reward.

Cycle time matters more now than ever," says Wilhelm. "But to compress it responsibly, you need everyone—from purchasing to construction to warranty—aligned and informed. That doesn’t happen with disconnected tools."

Sinkey adds:

Constellation has been good at listening to their builders. Small changes they make can take away 30 hours of work a month or a week, even across the whole company. One example, to complete a DocuSign we now simply click a button – which saves us 30 minutes for each sale. They've been making some great strides by adding additional customer service type of elements, tweaking the platform to allow for phase building, helping us modify with the times. We have a very agile-minded company, and Constellation helps us remain agile."

Spring 2025 Raised the Stakes

Coming off a spring season that underperformed expectations, homebuilders are navigating a trickier path than anticipated. High mortgage rates, elevated home prices, and unpredictable insurance costs have left the market sluggish.

The urgency we’re hearing from builders right now is real," Wilhelm notes. "They need to find efficiencies wherever they can—not just to survive, but to reinvest and grow. That’s where system unification pays off."

Constellation is seeing increased adoption of its unified solutions among builders in the $200 million to $700 million revenue range—a signal that mid-sized operators understand the stakes.

A unified platform used to be a luxury for the top ten builders. Not anymore," Wilhelm says. "It’s table stakes for anyone who wants to compete and scale."

Five Easy Takeaways

1.     Silos are expensive. If purchasing, sales, construction, and warranty don’t talk to each other through shared data, you're losing margin.

2.     Change management is critical. Software doesn’t fix culture. But leadership, vision, and team engagement can.

3.     Real-time data wins. It’s not enough to collect information—you need structured, live visibility to act decisively.

4.     Transparency drives accountability. Clarity across roles and responsibilities raises the performance bar.

5.     Velocity is strategic. Predictable cycle times power better vendor relationships, lower carry costs, and stronger buyer confidence.

As Wilhelm puts it:

The future of homebuilding belongs to those who can operate like manufacturers, think like technologists, and move like entrepreneurs. A unified system doesn’t just make that possible—it makes it repeatable."

The next big operational edge in homebuilding may not be in the dirt—it’s in the data, the workflows, and the systems that knit it all together.