What You Say Matters — Selling High Performance to Your Customers

Business Management
Published

Weeks being homebound have flexed the muscles (i.e., systems) of houses across the United States and most likely created heightened consumer awareness of utility bill costs and system performance, fresh air ventilation and filtering capabilities, as well as odors such as lingering cooking smells or damp air.

Living harder in their homes has people considering what they really want in their next house. Efficient, comfortable and healthy homes are likely to be high on the list of “must-haves” for those looking to buy or to remodel.

Many of the homes you have been building may already check these boxes. The 2020 Green Single Family and Multifamily Homes SmartMarket Brief showed that most builders are building with green features — particularly those involving energy efficiency and improved indoor air quality — whether or not they identify themselves as green builders.

Now is the opportunity to shift your business model or to reframe how you market your homes to meet this anticipated shift in customer demand. When talking to potential home buyers, consider highlighting features that meet some of these new "must-haves." Talk to customers in terms that they understand and relate to, and that can change the conversation from cost to value added.

In the 2020 SmartMarket Brief, builders ranked the top three terms for describing green features that have the greatest influence on their customers. The top terms were:

  • Operating Efficiency (53%, with 19% ranking it first)
  • Long-term Utility Cost Savings (49%, with 19% ranking it first)
  • Quality Construction (48%, with 22% ranking it first)
  • Healthier Home (22%, with 4% ranking it first)

Of the general terms often used by building professionals — green, high performance and sustainable — "high-performance" ranked the highest, with 38% putting it in their top three and 18% ranking it first. Only 12% of builders think "sustainable" resonates well with customers and "green" didn’t even make the list.

The top conversations to shift customer discussions from the cost of green to the value of high performance cited by single-family builder/remodeler survey respondents are:

  • Lower Operating Costs (84% builders/85% remodelers)
  • Greater Comfort/Better Occupant Experience (52% builders/54% remodelers)
  • Improved Health and Well-Being (43% builders/59% remodelers)

The 2020 SmartMarket Brief — the latest in a series of studies conducted by Dodge Data & Analysis, in partnership with NAHB — also contains results on builders’ perspectives on green building market activity, costs and trends, marketing green homes, drivers and obstacles for green building, and the use of green products and practices. The full report is available for free download at nahb.org/smr.

For more details about NAHB’s sustainable and green building initiatives, contact Sustainability and Green Building Program Manager Michelle Diller. To stay current on high-performance residential building, follow NAHB’s Sustainability and Green Building team on Twitter.

Subscribe to NAHBNow

Log in or create account to subscribe to notifications of new posts.

Log in to subscribe

Latest from NAHBNow

PWB Week | Professional Women in Building Council

Sep 17, 2025

Strength in Numbers: The Power of Professional Women in Building Councils

PWB councils of all sizes are helping reshape the narrative in the home building industry nationwide, merging inspiration and education with recreation and connection.

Economics

Sep 17, 2025

Housing Starts Remain Soft Ahead of Fed Meeting

Overall housing starts decreased 8.5% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.31 million units, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau.

View all

Latest Economic News

Economics

Sep 18, 2025

Women in Construction Reach Highest Share in Two Decades

In 2024, the number of women employed in the construction industry rose to around 1.34 million. Women now represent 11.2% of the construction workforce, the highest share in the past 20 years. This rise aligns with the growing presence of white-collar jobs in the industry.

Economics

Sep 17, 2025

The Fed Cuts and Projects More Easing to Come

After a monetary policy pause that began at the start of 2025, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy committee (FOMC) voted to reduce the short-term federal funds rate by 25 basis points at the conclusion of its September meeting. This move decreased the target federal funds rate to an upper rate of 4.25%.

Economics

Sep 17, 2025

Housing Starts Remain Soft Ahead of Fed Meeting

Challenging affordability conditions continue to act as headwinds for the housing industry, but the sector could see lower interest rates in the near future with the Federal Reserve expected to cut short-term interest rates this afternoon.