Where builder discounts are biggest and who is still buying

Homebuilders spent late spring and summer grinding through a tougher-than-expected housing market that, by most accounts, has only gotten more challenging in recent weeks. Cautious buyers are more apt to sit on the fence, and builders are having to sweeten the pot to get them to act by leaning harder on rate buydowns, price discounts and closing-cost incentives.That environment is also changing the math of sales and marketing. When demand is plentiful, builders can think in big numbers. Benchmarks like traffic, leads, absorption rates and the three, four or five orders per community per week that traditionally define a healthy sales pace are in wide use. When buyers are scarce, however, success increasingly comes down to little numbers: finding the households with the means and motivation to move, understanding where they are in the buying journey and converting them one sale at a time.Against this backdrop, data shared exclusively with HousingWire TBD from Audience Town, a marketing platform that partners with homebuilders, offers a more granular look at where discounting is deepest, who’s actually buying and how builders are reaching them. For 2027 planning, the report points bui...