2026 Growth Strategies for Home Builders: Plan, Prioritize, Deliver

Katie Larmore: Um, so first of all, thank you all for joining us for 2026 Growth Strategies for Homebuilders: Plan, Prioritize, and Deliver. Um, we're super excited to have everyone here. Um, I'm Katie Larmore. I'm our lifecycle marketing manager here at TraceAir. Been with TraceAir for about four years and super excited today to be joined by Ivan and John.

Katie Larmore: Um, John McManus is the publisher of The Builders Daily and vice president of home building at HW Media. And Ivan Wolf is our CEO here at TraceAir. John has spent his career helping builders and developers make sense of market forces, and Ivan works directly with land and construction teams who are trying to plan faster, spend smarter, and deliver more with less. Together, they bring the 30,000-foot view and the on-ground perspective of what 2026 will really require from builders and developers. And now I'm going to let each of them tell you a little bit about themselves before we dive in. So thank you, Katie. Yep, go ahead.

Ivan Wolf: Yeah, thank you, Katie, and hello everyone. Uh, my name is Ivan Wolf. I am the CEO of TraceAir. I have been scaling high-growth tech companies for around 20 years now. Uh, TraceAir specifically, I joined in 2016 at the very early days. I joined the founding team to help product-market fit and then uh build all of the growth and uh all of the amazing relationships with our clients, and I became the CEO of the company just recently. But I have been in the industry and with the customers uh for all these years. Before TraceAir, I uh led an expansion of our digital mapping and business listings company. Uh, it's uh it had a lot of similarities with what we do with the bird's-eye view on what's happening as well as the very easy-to-use tools, and uh that company had very significant scale with a lot of offices. So um it's great to continue career and uh see TraceAir grow into the company that it is right now. Uh, my focus today is on converting TraceAir into a multi-product platform, and uh you already probably uh those of you who are our users or customers, you have noticed that we are launching new products to pretty much help throughout the entire construction cycle. Uh, we started in land development. Right now, we uh have the products for land acquisition and the vertical phase, as well as launching something new and exciting that uh I hope we'll have a couple of minutes to talk about today. But the point, of course, for today's conversation is uh not about us, but uh just pretty much being the uh the people talking like and sharing the customers' voices and then also sharing our opinion on what's coming next. Okay.

Katie Larmore: Awesome. I've had the pleasure of working with Ivan over the past four years here. Ivan is a lot of fun. And then more recently, I've been working with John and getting to know John at Builder Daily. Um, John is a a wealth of information, a really interesting guy. So John, I'll let you tell us a little bit more about yourself.

John McManus: Thank you, Katie and Ivan. It's great to be with you today, and uh thanks all folks for carving out some time for us. John McManus, uh most recently, I've been excited to have been welcomed into the HousingWire family, uh where The Builders Daily and um our efforts will be to expand the waterfront of a very exciting organization um all about all things housing. And the vertical of homebuilders and residential development is um an area of strategic uh excitement. So we're really, um, you know, sort of jazzed about that. Um, prior to that, I had, after a long career working for media companies of varying sizes um in New York and then in Washington, um working for organizations that um focused on everything from consumer insight and intelligence to demographics. And over the last 20 years, uh getting to um have some relationship building with a really amazing community, the the people who are uh makers of homes and neighborhoods. Um, so have been doing that for a long time, have gotten a lot of friends in the community and learned a whole lot about that over the last, you know, two decades. And um I'm so excited to see some of the, you know, inflection in how those businesses have evolved um, you know, in a in a time that, you know, for the last uh decade or so, it's been a a pretty strong growth cycle for a lot of these companies. And um now we're sort of hitting some challenges that have not really been so forceful um until the last couple of um 18 months, two years. Uh, um but uh there's certainly a whole DNA in the business community um that has to do with character and uh business cultures. And so that's what makes this uh community so exciting to be a part of and uh bring analysis to, and celebrate what they do well and challenge everybody on what we feel um they could do better.

Katie Larmore: Awesome. Thank you guys both for introducing yourselves. And now we will um get into the conversation. So I'm going to stop sharing this screen and let me move my windows around here a little bit. Um, okay, so uh I'm sure most of our guests here today are builders and developers, and they are really feeling the pressure of rising costs and regulations. So John, how about you give us some insight on what is putting the most pressure on builder margins going into 2026?

John McManus: Sure. And, you know, if we have all day and tomorrow, we could really sort of cover this adequately, but um, you know, 2026, as we've kind of looked back on what we have been taking note of and and um clocking into 2026, is going to be a year where homebuilders and their partners um cannot afford invisible risk. Uh, invisible risk: make mistakes on on land, on time, or on people. Uh, the winners are going to be the ones who can see earlier, decide things more decisively, and align their teams around um that recognition. So the pressure on builder margins, um really if we kind of look back um 18 months or so, and homebuilders were talking about their their very healthy margins as as shock absorbers. Shock absorbers to go through a bumpier time and really be able to navigate uh moving parts and and be able to kind of uh figure out um where their opportunities are and and and capture um capture back the the lost margin um a bit at a time. Well, those shock absorbers have been stressed and tested for all they're worth. Margins margins are being squeezed on three sides at once: the house itself, the capital, and the clock. So house-level pressure—what I mean by that is the squeeze um that builders are, you know, trying to hold their base prices as long as they can, but they're spending more and more on concessions, incentives, design sweeteners, spec upgrades, just to keep their pace of absorptions um at an a tolerable level so that they can kind of keep moving uh forward. You don't always see that in the top-line price, but it's there in the margin. Every every concession shows up in the gross margin column um eventually. So then there's capital pressure: carrying cost and risk pricing, um cost of capital and is is is um more constrained, it's it's higher, the terms are tougher. And, you know, the the borrowers, the homebuilders, particularly private builders who have personal guarantees, um are are greater risk. And so they have uh a greater pressure to keep their their their homes um selling so that they can um pay the their uh covenants um and keep them uh in compliance and that sort of thing. In this environment, land that doesn't turn quickly is a margin leak, so it's not an asset. So then there's timing: timing pressure, delays, rework, and friction. So the third squeeze is the calendar. Every every delay, every rework order on a site is a margin event now, it's not an inconvenience. The business used to be about absorbing slippage; now 2026 is not that kind of year. So that's why I keep on coming back to visibility. And Ivan, if you can't see where your time and dollars are leaking on a map, on a schedule, you can't defend your margins. That's where tools like uh TraceAir and what your team is doing on site intelligence uh can turn uh what used to be guesswork into something you can actually manage.

Ivan Wolf: Yeah, John, thank you. I I really how I really like how you said it: uh, the developers cannot afford the invisible risk anymore. Uh, back 10 years ago when we started, and uh we started by speaking with uh dozens, if not hundreds of customers, trying to understand the problems. Uh, the problem with land development and the site work uh had always been uh it's it it's like very unpredictable. Like, sometimes out of the blue you get a huge issue, and uh it may be tens of thousands, it may be hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then suddenly, all of the budget, all of the schedule uh is already not there where you started. I think that in the current conditions with uh with everything that you outlined, uh it's not like the problem became new, right? But the squeeze from, as you said, all of the sides—like that sandwich of the buyers uh not being willing or able to buy in the current conditions, uh but also the costs still going up like just naturally and gradually, right? Like just squeezing the margin and not leaving any space other than just work efficiently and pretty much uncover what was uh hidden. And uh that uh that's an interesting environment. Uh, definitely not the best times for the industry, but at the same time, I feel uh very hopeful because usually at the time, you know, when the uh the struggle um of or the suffering from the existing state, from the status quo, overcomes the fear of change, usually something good happens. I will I maintain the positive note on that front. And yeah, and the if like one uh we were speaking with uh executives at one of our customers recently, and they outlined an interesting thing is just across all of the departments, all of the uh groups within uh the homebuilder, uh our customers are looking for the ways to uh improve. And at the same time, like the impact of every single issue uh may be very different. And uh this is also very interesting uh that the if the, for example, there is a hiccup, there is a change order, like there is something unpredictable happens on the site, uh there is nothing to absorb it with, right? So that's a that's the time where mistakes are like uh almost not allowed. And uh that uh that is pretty tough.

Katie Larmore: Yeah, that's really great insight. Um, over the past couple years, you know, we've been hearing a lot repeatedly about um supply chain bottlenecks with um materials, lots, especially labor. Um, John, in conversations that you're having with builders and Ivan, um are you guys seeing where that's getting any better, or are we thinking that's going to continue to be an issue going into 2026?

John McManus: Well, Katie, I I I think that uh if you think about some of these issues, they're they're they're structural. Um, so you can get through some of the acute pain, um but they're kind of like mercury: they they take a different form, they're very hard to lock down. Uh, labor, lots, and logistics are still tight, it's just that in different ways they're tight. Um, from labor, you're going from a shortage uh to a skills gap and an age gap. The emergency phase of no one showing up on a job site may be getting easier, but the underlying labor story is is really, really a decade-long issue uh in terms of uh getting the right people in the right positions and right skills and right uh right capabilities. And a lot of that has to do with, you know, the fact that more people are aging out still of construction trades than uh coming into them. Um, and that's going to take something that we haven't thought of yet to uh kind of have a a a pivot on. You've got um aging core of superintendents and trade leaders, and you know, when you start to have those people leave the job sites, you're not getting that kind of hands-on training of the younger workers. So you're you're more susceptible to kind of um job site issues because you don't have that um veteran of the sites on on, you know, there um. For lots, you know, you know, lots, you know, maybe the amount is less important than the actual uh location and quality of the lot. So on the most, builders aren't lot-starved in the aggregate, but um the bottleneck of lots that are going to move uh and be desirable uh in this kind of bumpy, spotty uh marketplace um really make are are where all the all the make all the difference. So um and yet, as well, there's entitlement choke points on um off-site work, utilities, and other kind of permitting that makes it so that lots are difficult to put on the ground uh no matter what. And then materials, um materials we've seen, you know, um through the liberation day period to um the present, there's some, you know, volatility and unpredictability and uncertainty around the cost, the timing, um and all of the kind of, um, you know, uh visibility that the homebuilder uh needs to uh pre-buy um and um and have um distributed to the job sites what they need. So there's a lot of unpredictability, and that seems to be that that's a strategic um intentional right now that uh builders are living with.

Ivan Wolf: Yeah, I can second that. And what you mentioned about the more experienced people kind of holding the knowledge and uh actually helping pushing the pro- like the process forward, um yeah, I I I kind of like I use the expression "the tribal knowledge." And uh that's especially interesting when indeed we have like some sort of a change in the generation: the younger uh people don't really want to go into the industry, and they also come with without the knowledge required, and with the people who are experienced leaving the industry, that that that is an interesting, like, a very tight situation where uh it it's pretty much easy to drop the ball. And uh on the labor, times and times again, uh the problem we hear and see uh hear from our customers and see when uh we work with them and uh visit the sites is uh is uh like the productivity, like what's uh like what what exactly is improving. On one hand, our customers, production homebuilders, tract homebuilders, right, the the biggest builders, the public companies as well as the private ones, they're amazingly efficient. Like, if you think about like how how quickly they can put a house together, uh it is I I do have a friend who built his own house with his hands, and that's that's an interesting and uh and amazing process. And at the same time—and he was building for himself, right, so the motivation is all there—but on the other hand, when you think about the production home building, and like we we see the houses being built in like 90 to 120 days, and yet when we visit the construction sites and we see how the process is working, there's like so much room for improvement. So I think on the labor, it's not necessarily the shortage, it's uh it's the the productivity uh productivity gap. Uh, on the lots, uh that's a whole big topic I'm I'm happy to talk about for hours, which we don't have, but the I think again, uh it's more like uh types of the lots uh that are available, the ones that can be sold, that's I I totally agree with you on that. Uh, and on the other hand, we um it's still kind of an issue of the visibility uh on that front uh because for any builder deciding what to build next, uh it's very important and critical to understand not only what's uh available right now and maybe even what's selling right now, but also what will be available in 12, 24 months, maybe 5 years from now. So that uh that is an interesting uh angle how to look at that. And I we will see if we have a bit more time to speak about that later. But, and like finally, on the materials, uh what we observed during the COVID and the kind of this commodity volatility, I think that has calmed. Specialty materials, the ones with electronic components, uh they still uh remain an issue, and sometimes, uh depending on the regulation, on the uh on the geopolitics, like suddenly something may become an issue. But I don't hear it from the customers being the uh dominant problem these days. Uh, and uh yeah, so I uh it's the bottlenecks are kind of still present, maybe with a slight different angle, but coming back to the previous question about the pressure on the margins, uh with the same problems, but with the pressure from both sides and the sandwich, that is uh becoming uh an ever-reason problem to my mind.

John McManus: Yeah, but the the bottom line is when there's there's slower pace, when there's less going through the the pipeline, it is the time that companies really have to um do work to improve their entire processes, um the whole lifecycle, um really do things that they can't do when everything's working on on on all cylinders. So that's that's what's been going on um for the better part of this year into next year, and it's all about trying to um take out structural inefficiencies, um uh really sort of absorb what operational uh data really means when it's clean data and everyone's using the same data, and that sort of thing. So these are these are the operational offsets to some of these uh chronic um challenges that have are are not going to go away right away, but they're they're they're going to be more manageable in in a tougher time.

Katie Larmore: Awesome. Yeah, that's great insight. I wanted to say real quick as well, I forgot to mention this in the beginning, but we will have time for Q&A. So as we're chatting here, if anybody has any questions, just feel free to throw them into the Q&A box. Um, but that was great um insight, John and Ivan. I think that leads in really nicely to our next question. Um, you know, there's definitely still a housing shortage, and I'm reading a lot in your articles, John, about demand and hearing that from our clients. Um, it seems like there's, you know, demand is there, but it's fragile. Builder confidence seems still cautious, um seeing a lot of communities leaning on incentives and rate buy-downs and price adjustments just to keep sales moving. So, um what do you think demand um looks like, and how is that going to help builders shape their strategies going into 2026?

John McManus: Sure. And I I think I would be an idiot to sort of say with certainty what it looks like, because, you know, when you talk to somebody in the morning and you talk to them in the afternoon, their their entire, you know, uh picture may have changed uh just by on what's happening in a in a micro market, um a submarket, um that sort of thing. So I I I think that I think that there is um everything and all at once going on with respect to demand. I I I know that it's it's slower. I know that it's um it's it's a very tough period uh in in general terms, but it's kind of so filtered and fragile in different places. And then um we we heard from the Toll Brothers call yesterday that the positioning around an an affluent customer has provided some resilience. So what we're seeing is that there's different kinds of demand that will be um relatively resilient within um even um consumer hesitation periods, and in and and in pricing out and around sensitivities to the um home prices and and interest rates. So there's there's certain kinds of resilience that can be detected and um and recognized and then um targeted in this environment. So what we're looking at is, you know, this group we call the "life happens" buyers, uh you know, "life happens" having to do with demand that is there from households that tend to have to move: new baby, new job, change, divorce, multigenerational needs. Those buyers really have compelling household, um, you know, imperatives that uh really make it so that they're put put into the market um with less discretion around uh the timing. Um, this dis, you know, at the same time, discretionary buyers, the the ones that um, you know, the up up-market, um, you know, uh luxury and um affluent positioning, um, you know, they are finding demand, um providing they can convince um people who may be hesitant about whether this is the right time or not the right time, but they're really thinking about their dream home. So, um it's really getting those folks uh with the discretionary uh means to buy, either with all cash or a great deal amount of of cash as part of their purchase, and are less uh sensitive to um either interest rates or house prices. Um, what they want is to be in the home um in their their timing, uh their desire, and that sort of thing, but making it so that they're um compelled um through the messaging and the community opportunity and that kind of thing, the customer care, to make that decision now as opposed to waiting. Um, that's really what the challenge is. And then there's the payment, um payment, not price, around the more entry-level. So for most buyers, the monthly payment is the battlefield. Builders are structuring their incentives, smaller footprints, and specs to hit very specific payment thresholds, um and that um is finding some some level of success. Um, some people are are gaining some market share in communities uh by being the one that uh those those types of buyers are finding um um to be the right choice. Um, so it and then demand also is shaping land and product strategy. So, um um smart builders are using demand signals—online leads um and other kind of traffic—to decide which phases to bring on, which um SKUs to push, and uh which deals to walk away from. So it's 2026 is less about more projects uh and more about uh making fewer mistakes and being in the right place.

Ivan Wolf: Yeah, I love it, John. I love it how you said it. I mean, it's uh it's almost needless to say, but of course, the long-term uh demand uh remains strong. Like, there's millions of houses that still are needed uh by the people, and it will probably apply to like any of the category of the customers. Uh, in in the current conditions, it kind of I think if before the the sales would be uh and like a certain distribution would be like kind of filling almost every bucket, I think right now we have fewer buckets available, right? As you said, there are uh "life happens" customers or the customers with their own money, and uh for them, the market—and especially in some of the areas, I I can give you an example of Austin, Texas, where I live now, and it like the there is a plenty of uh uh houses available and the prices are dropping significantly. So if you have capital and you already were thinking about buying a house, uh that may be not the worst time. On the other hand, the first-time buyers with all of the capital of affordability, or lack of thereof, uh on on the financing side, uh it makes it very tough. The um we we see with our customers, we see quite significant uh differences in the level of activity in different regions, almost to the point that some of the areas, uh we call them "hot geos," they they seem to work as they worked before, and they seem to be growing. And other areas may be dropping significantly. So we're definitely, like, just following our customers' activity. Uh, we can see we can see this, like, spots across the country that still remain strong. Uh, but then coming back to the kind of more like a general trend on demand side, uh I think it's the um it's like a good but rational market, that's how I would call it. Like, that's what is reasonable to expect. Uh, it's uh like less like an impulse buying uh just because the capital was available, but much more thinking put into that, like observation, much more uh customers are coming in much more prepared for the pricing and negotiations. And, of course, with the uh with the inventory available, it's like they become like in some certain areas, with all of this uh preparation and all of the knowledge and all of the market conditions, it kind of becomes like a buyer's market in some of the areas. Uh, but the yeah, so I think the um looking at the demand and also pretty much summarizing the topics we already discussed, I think we are entering the condition that before, uh maybe the developers would just, like, kind of, like, sit and wait and maybe, like, try to make minor adjustments here and there, I think it's just becoming a new norm. And in that new norm, like, there are new rules being established, and uh that uh that is, as I said before, it's just, like, for me personally, just exciting time, the time of change. And uh and yeah, let's see where it leads us.

Katie Larmore: Awesome. Um, yeah, that's really great insight, Ivan and John. Um, Ivan, this probably is a good question for you. Maybe you'll be able to expand on this one some, but um where does sharper visibility and technology actually help move the needle and help our builders?

Ivan Wolf: Yeah, well, that's definitely something we we're doing every day, uh both with the technology we have and looking at the new opportunities. But at the same time, whether this current condition or two years ago and maybe probably five years in the future, I think it probably would be mainly like eliminating rework, uh like making sure that you just don't do things twice. Uh, in the site work scenario with uh the problem that we discovered with customers and actually actively helping solve is, like, for example, moving dirt twice. It's like if uh it's it's pretty much like a very big hit on the margin, right? So like, and then the dirt example is only one, but like every time a mistake is made and you need to redo something inside the house on on uh in the site work phase, it's uh it it's just terrible and a big like very big impact on the budget and the schedule. Um, shortening the cycle times, uh that becomes even more important, I would say, in the current conditions, uh specifically when, as John mentioned, like just being like smart and trying to be proactive about the demand, like using all of the means to understand where the customers are going to buy. Uh, and then from the point you get this information, of course, like you if you start the house, you need to finish it as soon as possible. Site work uh and land development phase, uh it it has been like more potential opportunities uh for uh significant uh shifts in the schedule that would lead to, well, I mean, kind of miss the opportunity, miss the window in that market, and if your competitors are faster, right? So it's most of the customers just keep repeating it as a mantra, uh like "cycle time is everything." I think that uh the trend that I, even during my time at TraceAir and like in the industry, I observed that that uh the next component is becoming more important, and I hear it more and more. Uh, I'm talking about empowering trade partners, right? So it's like one thing you you treat uh the companies working for you as contractors—well, consultants—on the other hand, uh even the word "trade partners" is uh coming into the conversations more and more. And the logic here is, like, when you're working on something as complex as the construction project with a lot of moving pieces, the more visibility your uh trade partners have, uh the more data they have, like the more intelligence they have to make the right decision uh at at the right spot, right, so the better the whole process becomes. And uh, I mean, specifically at TraceAir, right, like we kept that in mind while building our technology. And I'm talking about the uh the current uh uh portfolio of products, which is on the site intelligence side, right? It's the, but also like the same would probably apply on the bigger picture on the market intelligence we are working on right now. But the uh the logic is uh if everyone is looking at the same information and have access to the tools to analyze this information, uh people can uh do amazing things. Uh, people are insanely creative, they have a lot of energy, they're very collaborative in their nature. But if the sources of information uh are limited, if you cannot make sense of the information, right, that becomes like a serious bottleneck. So I think this is where technology uh can help tremendously, and I see this uh as kind of a rising trend. Um, and the and I just mentioned the word "market intelligence." I think that's where we see a lot of new players coming up, and we uh are also making uh significant bold moves into that direction, where uh just with example, like I I will speak about uh uh what we do is uh we uh our solution, like our core competency, is in the reality capture. So we have uh the uh expertise, we have resources, we have technology to acquire the large amount of data uh over large territories in very quick uh time, and do it on regular basis with a very uh good cost that require- allows us to share it with the customers at the reasonable price. So with all of that, it's like just thinking about what's there in the market right now, uh the construction analytics at the level of the region or at the level of the micro region or the sub-markets, and then providing this information to the customer together with some tools to make sense of what's going on and where the trend goes. And then as we move along and keep uh scanning the every single construction site, right, that is available there, uh with every little uh new, like every every monthly data point, for example, right, uh then you would be able to go back, like back into the past, and look uh at the the cycle times, how they change, uh what is the uh production rate, like what is the cycle times going on, and predict it into the future. So I'm I'm I'm giving uh our example, but we see a lot of great uh technology companies and tools coming into the scene providing much more visibility, because, of course, at the level uh at the land acquisition stage, that's a critical decision. Like if the mistake is made at this stage, it's like it's very hard to fix with anything later on during the construction efficiency. So, yeah, I I I I think that would be probably my points. But, of course, as a leader of the technology company, as I said, you really need to stop me, otherwise I will be talking for hours.

Katie Larmore: Yeah, John, I'm not sure if you have anything to um to add to that, but you know, I can say at least during my time here or four years of talking with clients and visiting clients, it really is just amazing like how they can the projects are so big, they're so spread out, especially when we're dealing with master plans. And it just has been so interesting learning about how small problems can just snowball out of control so quickly. Um, but yeah, John, I'm not sure, I know you chat with builders a lot, if you're hearing anything about technology on your side.

John McManus: Sure. Well, I think it's a it's a it's a moment of truth. I mean, not not that it's brand new, but the moment of truth has to do with what I talked about from the very beginning here about invisible risk, okay? So invisible risk, um, when technology helps to move the needle around turning that invisible risk into a a smarter decision—especially as Ivan Ivan was talking about with land, um utilities, rework—it's it's it's it's about getting to um not such a a beautiful dashboard, it's about, you know, how am I going to prevent a bad land, how am I going to catch uh an issue in in the uh start to completion process um uh early enough on so that you don't have a cascading, uh, you know, cost effect? Um, does it pull days out of the um cycle, uh completion cycle? Um, so it's not about the software, it's about the decisions that you can make now that you don't regret uh that you made um, you know, uh two a year or two later. So, um from where uh I see it, I I think that technology does have a a a great kind of opportunity to um help the homebuilder and their partners um appreciate where those uh risks have always been lying, but to be able to see them and appreciate them and um um forestall them causing more problems um in their in their workflows uh as they go forward.

Katie Larmore: Yeah, that's great. Um, it's been it's been great at TraceAir, too, just seeing how it empowers teams and just really gives them the confidence to to do their jobs and do them well. Um, okay, so we're closing we're um getting closer to the end here. We'll do one just rapid-fire question, and then I do see a couple Q&As. Um, so I'll start with you, John. What do you think is going to be the biggest hurdle for developers in 2026?

John McManus: Well, I I think that the um there's certainly, I'd say the biggest would be three: regulatory and uh utility time risk. I think there's, you know, there there's it's very hard to get a lot on the ground, I hear that over and over again. So it's it's um really continuing to be able to do that in an efficient way so that the whole lifecycle can uh be profitable in spite of all of these other difficult moving parts. Um, a a second one is, um, you know, that that teams overall are going to be thinner um due to expense uh expense reductions and things like that, so they're being able to um get more um capability with with fewer people, I I think is going to be a a challenge. Um, and then finally, capital patience and trust. So I think that people um who are in relationships with financial lenders, uh investors, um continuing to be able to, um, you know, make good on those relationships and be trustworthy and be able to continue to produce at a at a level that makes their companies um um functional, that's going to be that's going to be a challenge. I think there there's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of uncertainty and and volatility that make all of those, I think I I think it's a period where uncertainty is almost an intentional part of this policy uh regime that we're in.

Katie Larmore: Awesome. Um, okay, a Q&A um came in. This one's for you, Ivan. Um, how do you see TraceAir evolving over the next two years for builders and developers?

Ivan Wolf: Well, that that that's a great question. I will I will try to shorten my answer, but uh the very short version would be uh we are not necessarily moving, we are expanding from being a site intelligence platform uh and adding the market intelligence component to it. Uh, so I think that would just pretty much highlight what what what's going on there. What I mean by site intelligence: we started with a product for land development site work uh that became uh uh the product that the customers really, really appreciate having with all of the visibility and stuff. And then uh it helps track construction progress and understand the the dirt movement, align contractors, check the invoices and change orders. It's that it definitely has like a laser focus on the project and what's going on there. But now zooming out, and I mean we are using drone technology, right, and then we pretty much almost like metaphorically going and level up and seeing not just one project, but what's going on in the region with the same logic with the data acquisition, data processing, and then the tools to make sense of this data. So, like applying the same uh uh uh principles of the product building, we are right now uh making this, like, level up and providing building the uh uh solution for our customers to understand uh what's going on at the region, bigger level of the country, and see where the trend go, what does the construction pace, how are the builders doing against each other. Like, if you see the similar types of homes, you can see the difference in the cycles, what's going on there, like this type of information uh for which I think we uniquely positioned to provide uh this, um, well, again, just a unique perspective uh on what's going on. And then uh that perspective can be used with all the tools and consulting uh services available in the market already. So we're pretty much saying it's a lot like about replacing whatever the developers are already doing there. There are a lot of great solutions already out there and a lot of great companies with great insights, but uh having this data layer available together with the easy-to-use tool—how that's how we build the products together with those tools—make sure that you understand what's going on and make better decisions.

Katie Larmore: Awesome. Okay, we have time for one more. Um, I'm going to give this one to you, John. What do you think will be the biggest trend for developers in 2026?

John McManus: Um, well, uh I I I I think it's c- it's it's people. It's people on the customer care side and um the the team member side. In in terms of a trend, it's really sort of learning, um, you know, what what this past couple of years of of volatility and uncertainty have um have have taught people in terms of how to get get more capability uh um by uh upskilling, by by training, by u making it so that their operations are all um in sync with one another and accountable to each other. So I I I really do think that we're seeing the character of of of companies um uh evolve in a way that is about the next uh next 10 years, as opposed to the the past uh 50 years in terms of how how to be a company and use uh data and technology and building technologies and um and and financial resources in a way that they can be profitable. So I I do think we're seeing um the the evolution of the the home building company. Um, and it's exciting to anticipate. It's going to continue to be difficult into next year, but I think that this is all about um being nimble, being adaptive, being um agile, uh as as these kinds of um operations and and businesses need to be for um a future that should be uh a strong one around residential investment and development.

Katie Larmore: Awesome. Okay, great. Um, well, I think that concludes our time. If anybody has any other questions for John or Ivan, we'll make sure that their emails are in the follow-up um email that goes out with the on-demand recording. Um, thank you so much, especially John, for for joining us today. Your your insight is always welcome and appreciated. Thank you, Ivan, for all of your insight as well. Um, be sure to follow TraceAir on LinkedIn. We're always posting about upcoming events and webinars on there. We're going to be at the International Builders' Show coming up. Um, yeah, there'll be a a survey that pops up when you click out of this window, and we will talk with you all soon. Ivan, John, anything else?

Ivan Wolf: Yeah, thanks so much, uh, Katie, for leading this. And John and Katie, thanks so much for joining us. That's been a pleasure uh speaking with you today, but also just getting to know you more and more over the last few months. I uh for the audience, I just want to invite everyone to, you know, continue this conversation. And of course, during the webinar format, we don't hear your voices. Uh, please reach out uh and uh let's talk. We would love to hear how you see the trends and how you see the where technology can be the most helpful. Uh, it's we're always curious, but at the same time, right now at the time of the change or at the end of the year, that's it's a great opportunity to reflect on that.

John McManus: Thank you so much, Katie and Ivan. Thank you. Have a great day.

Ivan Wolf: Thank you, John. Bye-bye.

Katie Larmore: Bye-bye. Bye.