Student Competition Promotes Innovative Solutions to Housing Affordability

Housing Affordability
Published

Housing affordability is an ongoing challenge that continues to impact the country. According to the latest data from the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI), housing affordability is at its lowest level since the Great Recession. Challenges such as lack of lots and labor and rising material costs persist to hamper affordability issues, but the home building industry continues to look for ways to help alleviate these issues.

One such example is the Ivory Innovations' upcoming “Hack-a-House” competition — a 24-hour live event to promote innovative and scalable solutions. The competition invites student teams to pitch a proposal based on a selected theme — homelessness, environmental challenges and construction technology, or sustainable renting and affordable homeownership — and encourages teams to “consider how their solution interacts with existing policy, finance and/or construction and design practices.”

Teams will receive a prompt on Sept. 30 at 12 p.m. MST to kick off the competition. Four monetary awards totaling $10,000 will be given to winning teams.

Individuals or teams can register by Sept. 29 to enter the competition. More details are available at ivory-innovations.org/hackahouse.

Subscribe to NAHBNow

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

Log in to subscribe

Latest from NAHBNow

IBS | Leading Suppliers Council

Oct 23, 2025

IBS 2026 Exhibit Home Aims for Groundbreaking Energy-Efficiency Rating

For anyone curious about how far today’s innovative building products can take a home’s performance, The New American Home 2026 is the must-see showcase at the upcoming Builders’ Show, taking place Feb. 17–19.

Workforce Development

Oct 22, 2025

NAHB Generates Enthusiasm for the Trades During the Big Build

NAHB recently introduced thousands of students to the skilled trades during The Big Build event at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

View all

Latest Economic News

Economics

Oct 20, 2025

Non-Conventional Financing for New Home Sales Loses Ground in 2024

Nationwide, the share of non-conventional financing for new home sales accounted for 31% of the market per NAHB analysis of the 2024 Census Bureau Survey of Construction (SOC) data. This is 1.7 percentage point lower than the 2023 share of 32.4%. As in previous years, conventional financing dominated the market at 69.3% of sales, higher than the 2023 share of 67.6%.

Economics

Oct 17, 2025

Better Growth, Larger Deficits: CBO Fiscal Outlook

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a key nonpartisan score keeper that measures the effects of policy changes by the Federal Government. With several policy changes since January of this year, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), stricter immigration, and higher tariffs, the CBO updated its economic projections through 2028.

Economics

Oct 16, 2025

Amid Market Challenges, Builder Expectations Rise in October

Even as builders continue to grapple with market and macroeconomic uncertainty, sentiment levels posted a solid gain in October as future sales expectations surpassed the 50-point breakeven mark for the first time since last January.