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Limited research has been conducted on quality management practices in the US homebuilding industry. The purpose of this paper is to establish which practices are actually applied, to what extent and to discuss how quality management can be best advanced in the industry.

A literature review is conducted on the application of quality in the construction and US homebuilding industry, followed by the analysis of 22 case studies of US homebuilders to provide details of quality implementation.

While quality management continues to expand and be adopted by industries globally, its application in the homebuilding industry is limited and immature. While quality management systems and quality award criteria are making an impact, the key focus is still being heavily placed on inspection processes, with limited use of structured and advanced quality approaches. Senior managers still see quality as a peripheral issue and are not convinced of its value. There is a need for leaders in the industry to embrace quality and to adopt consistent company‐wide systematic and strategic‐based approaches.

Limited research has been conducted into the application of quality management in the homebuilding industry. This study of 22 leading homebuilders provides insights into the actual practices of quality management. Recommendations are provided as a guide for future direction for quality in the industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption process of high performance building technologies, including alternative wall systems, in hot‐humid climates. Challenges faced by homebuilders adopting high performance building technologies, and resulting energy performance are discussed.

The paper is a case study of four homebuilders using high performance building technologies, including advanced framing, panelised and modular. For each homebuilder, a baseline and a demonstration house were evaluated for energy performance and technology adoption. Homebuilders were interviewed to identify implementation challenges and barriers faced during the construction process.

The advanced framing, modular and panelised houses used 50 percent, 42 percent, and 35 percent less energy when compared to the traditional stick‐built. Further, the modular appeared to have the greatest opportunity to boost performance for least cost. Participating builders identified cost as the top constraint to a wide adoption of high performance criteria, followed by a slow learning curve and the lack of proper marketing channels to transition from construction to sale.

Several limitations of the research restrict generalisation of findings: results are based on a small sample of homebuilders; and results reflect energy performance in a hot and humid climate. It is likely that relative energy usage will change as the size, scope, and design complexity of the common element changes.

Findings from this study will contribute to a better understanding of the usability of high performance technologies and ease the transition towards implementing high performance criteria into every builder company's culture.

The purpose of this paper is to better define the relationships between product variety and lean production in enabling mass customization in industrialized homebuilding.

This study includes a case study analysis of two housing plants that instituted lean production systems. For each company, the case study documented the company's background, the product choice offered, the lean implementation approach used, the results obtained, and the effect of product choice on the lean implementation. Using these case study findings, common trends were identified and used to develop guidelines for an effective mass customization strategy for industrialized homebuilders. This paper summarizes the extensive findings for one of the two plants and provides the recommended guidelines developed from common trends identified at both plants.

Case study findings indicated that product choice does not necessarily make the implementation of lean concepts more difficult. In fact, good lean concepts (e.g. continuous flow, pull system, workload leveling, defect‐free processes, standard tasks, good visual control, and reliable technology) were also good concepts for (or easily accommodated) handling a range of product choice.

Research findings are limited by the small number of plants involved in the study.

The paper makes an important contribution to the understanding of both lean production and mass customization, identifying the lean principles that facilitate mass customization for industrialized homebuilders. Findings also provide useful guidelines for builders interested in better addressing specific customer needs, while managing the operational complexities resulting from product variety.

The Mexican housing industry was hindered by a shrinking market and tighter financial conditions related to the Great Recession. Moreover, in 2013, a major change in public policy further modified this industry’s environment. Mexico’s new urban development policy supported inner-city new housing, in contrast to the previous policy that incentivized sprawling. Three out of eight publicly traded housing companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 2013-2014, arguably because of the effects of the Great Recession and the new housing policy. The purpose of this study is to identify firm-level factors that caused some firms to file for bankruptcy protection.

Three approaches were used to analyze the housing industry in Mexico from 2006 to 2015. First, a policy analysis focused on the new housing policy and its consequences for housebuilding companies. Second, a financial analysis of the two economic shocks was performed in search for the transmission mechanisms in the companies’ financial metrics. Third, a retrospective analysis using the Fisher’s exact test was used to identify variables statistically associated with companies filing for bankruptcy protection.

There are two features significantly associated with bankruptcy protection: increasing market share while being vertically integrated, as a response to the Great Recession, and the relative magnitude of the loss on firms’ inventory value due to the new public policy. Neither Altman’s Z-score values nor firm size or degree of integration are significantly related to bankruptcy.

The small sample size presented a challenge, as most statistical methodologies require large samples; however, this was overcome by using the Fisher’s exact test.

The main contribution of this paper is the statistical identification of the possible causes for bankruptcy protection in Mexico amongst homebuilding firms in 2013 and 2014, which have not previously been reported in the literature.

Much of the research into the development of home within the business literature has looked at home as a setting or a construct instead of as a process. Additionally, extant research has explored the process of homebuilding within the context of homeownership, often defining home in terms of a place that is owned by the individual living in it. However, nearly 30 percent of all housing units in which people live are rented spaces that are owned by others not living there. The purpose of this paper is to examine homebuilding as a process that can and often does occur in properties that the individual does not own.

Using a phenomenological approach, in‐depth interviews with renters lead to the development of a conceptual model of how renters build a sense of “home.”

The paper finds that though ownership does play a part in some individuals' sense of home, apartment dwellers often are able to build a “home” within an apartment context.

Limitations of the research include the small sample size; however, the process resulting from a small size may be used to develop hypotheses for future quantitative research.

The process outlined here may provide apartment communities and managers with insight into how they may retain tenants.

This paper focuses on an understanding of home that removes the notion of ownership from its definition, providing insight into how consumers build a sense of home in places they may not be able to physically alter.

The case was written based on personal interviews with Jordan Boyes.

Boyes Group, a private real estate brokerage in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, had been growing rapidly. Company founder Jordan Boyes needed to determine where to continue expanding. Saskatoon held great potential in home building, and he wondered if this would be a direction for his company. His real estate reputation was excellent, but he wondered if building homes would jeopardize his current relationships with local builders. He wanted to move fast, to avoid giving up market share to his competitors.

This case was designed for undergraduate and graduate classes in strategy.

This paper aims to establish a baseline for carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions quantification in the current residential construction process. Opportunities to reduce the environmental footprint of the homebuilding process are also identified.

CO₂ emissions of various house construction stages are quantified and utilised in a 3D building information model. This allows rapid emission computations for various house sizes, designs and materials. An intelligent database calculates emissions for different house styles with different construction processes.

Two construction stages (basement walls foundation and framing) were identified as high CO₂ emissions contributors. In addition, equipment operation on site, transportation to and from the site and heating for curing concrete were identified as the main sources of emissions during construction.

The paper addresses the limited attention given to CO₂ emissions during the actual construction process. The introduction of building information modeling for quantifying emissions in the construction process is of significant value. This research is pertinent to the international homebuilding industry and homebuyers who all have a role in mitigating CO₂ emissions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the insiders’ activities (buy/sell) during the recent meltdown of the homebuilders’ industry.

This study applies a regression model to analyze the relationship between the insiders’ net sales and variables that could be affecting the trading decisions controlling for other market variables.

The results show that CEOs of homebuilding companies had net positive selling activities and enjoyed massive gains by timing the market correctly. The insiders’ massive selling period was followed by significant declines in share prices of homebuilding companies. More specifically, CEOs (but not all top executives) acted as contrarian investors and sold when the share prices hit a record high, coupled by optimistic analysts’ recommendations, which were later seen as incorrect by the market. Also, CEOs sold at a time when EPS was at its highest level.

The current work can not disprove the “argument of diversification” cited by insiders as the reason for their stock sell off, mainly because it is not possible to obtain data about the CEOs’ personal portfolios.

This paper implies that CEOs were able to time the market by forecasting the trend in their industry.

The paper investigates the period between January 2004 and August 2007 which is characterized by mass selling by CEOs in the whole industry of home building companies and not only a specific entity.

The purpose of this paper is to validate and quantify the effect of key macroeconomic drivers on London house prices using annual data over the period 1983–2016.

Within this context, the authors estimate alternative error-correction and partial-adjustment models (PAMs), which have been widely used in the empirical literature in modelling the slow adjustments of house prices to demand and supply shocks.

The results verify the existence of a strong long-term relationship between London house prices and key macroeconomic variables, such as UK GDP, London population and housing completions. A key finding of the study relevant to the debate on the causes of the housing affordability crisis is that the results provide little evidence in support of the argument that user demand, which is captured in the author’s model by Greater London population, may have had a diminished role in driving house price inflation in London.

The practical and policy implications of the results are that increased homebuilding activity in London will undoubtedly help limit house price increases. Also, any potential reduction of immigration and economic growth due to Brexit will also have a similar effect.

The originality of this research lies in the use of annual data that may better capture the long-term effect of macroeconomic drivers on house prices and the estimation of such effects through both error-correction and partial-adjustment models.