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Principia’s Residential Construction Sentiment Tracker

For over a year, Principia has been conducting comprehensive surveys with key stakeholders in the residential construction industry. Our surveys focus on critical business issues and market dynamics shaping the industry to help reveal how key stakeholders are feeling about the state of the market.

Our newly released Residential Construction Sentiment Tracker provides a snapshot of the market’s sentiment across four primary audiences: lumberyards, one-step dealers, homebuilders, and contractors. The tracker evaluates their perspectives on three pivotal business indicators:

  1. Revenue Expectations: The level of confidence in their company’s ability to exceed the previous 12 months of revenue in the coming year.
  2. Impact of Price Increases: The extent to which stakeholders feel rising product costs are negatively affecting their business.
  3. Market Outlook: Expectations of a potential downturn in new residential construction within the next 12 months.

Our first Residential Construction Sentiment Tracker reveals a few notable takeaways:

  • Contractors are the least optimistic about their ability to exceed their previous 12 months’ revenue.  Out of the four audiences, contractors came in at 74% agreement compared to the other three audiences over 80% agreement.
  • Homebuilders least impacted by price increases. Perceptions of price increases vary significantly across audiences. Notably, homebuilders (27%) and contractors (37%) report less impact compared to one-step dealers (57%) and lumberyards (59%), who indicate the highest levels of concern regarding price increases and the impact on business.

  • Uptick of homebuilders and one-steppers expecting a downturn.  Between Q1 and Q2 of 2025, there was a marked increase in agreement from one-step dealers and homebuilders regarding an expected downturn in residential new construction. Agreement levels rose from 23% to 31% for one-step dealers and from 18% to 27% for homebuilders in just one quarter.

At Principia, we remain committed to delivering actionable voice of customer insights that provide businesses with the knowledge to better navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities.