Over the past couple decades, Home Innovation Research Labs has been tracking the popularity of new home exteriors through our Annual Builder Practices Survey. Based on the 2020 survey, we reported that brick, after a gradual long-term decline in share of new home exterior wall materials, saw back-to-back years of rebound in U.S. single-family detached homes.
In December 2020, Home Innovation conducted a survey of more than 200 builders on behalf of the Brick Industry Association to learn what they and their homebuyers value in clay brick. The findings point to a strong perception of beauty, quality, and safety for brick exteriors among builders, and an indication that their future use of clay brick is likely to remain strong with continued homebuyer demand and popularity of architectural styles they see as a “good fit” with brick.
For many, 2020 was the year that COVID-19 disrupted their lives in every conceivable way. From the perspective of homeownership, 2020 was the year we improved our outdoor living spaces; caught up on needed home repairs and improvements; organized our stuff; and made our homes more comfortable and functional places to spend time – at least that’s what the findings of our 2021 Consumer Practices Survey suggest. More than 110,000 U.S. and Canadian households participated in the Consumer Practices Survey, which was completed in December 2020, supplying us deep detail on their home and property improvement and repairs projects.