The latest Building Products & Remodeling Forecast webinar wasn’t a typical run-through of starts, rates, and a tidy recovery timeline. Todd Tomalak quickly made it clear the conversation was going to be broader and more consequential. Sharing a 2027 forecast fairly early, he explained, “there’s just so much that’s happening in the industry.” And the throughline of the conversation—between Tomalak, Principal of Building Products Advisory, and Jacob Belk, Vice President of Building Products Advisory—wasn’t panic. It was friction: friction in demand, friction in pricing, friction in data, and friction inside the new-construction options ecosystem.
What follows is a deliberately high-level set of takeaways, enough to frame what matters, but not a substitute for the full discussion. (If you operate anywhere in building products strategy, pricing, or channel leadership, it’s worth watching the on-demand replay.)
What you need to know from the 2027 building products and remodeling forecast
- 2027 is being repriced—downward and later.
Tomalak is direct that the outlook has shifted meaningfully, and that the timing of any remodeling recovery is not as near-term as many teams want to assume. “There is no scenario where we see increases in long-term rates, declines in real income, and contraction of credit, and we see home improvement spending growing across the board.” - Pricing is not just a “how much” question; it’s a “who wins” question.
Tomalak frames the current environment as one where margin, mix, and share are colliding—and where suppliers face hard choices that can reshape the leaderboard. “They’re really not sure how much, if at all, they can raise prices without losing their market share… it’s this game of chicken…” - The industry may be leaning too heavily on housing data that’s getting noisier.
One of the more pointed segments involves measurement risk and why starts don’t always translate cleanly into building products demand—particularly on the multifamily side. - Belk’s focus: don’t just track starts—track what gets selected inside the home.
Belk’s remarks center on what happens when affordability tightens: fewer upgrades, shifting mix, and a different kind of competition that’s easy to miss if you only watch top-line housing indicators. “When you have… a big jump up in mortgage rates, it decreases the number of categories of options per home.” - Digital isn’t an “add-on” anymore; it’s becoming habit.
Both presenters touch on how e-commerce and pro workflow behavior are changing buying patterns in ways that tend to stick. “That’s the muscle memory category.” - Deferral is accumulating—and it doesn’t disappear; it converts.
Tomalak returns to deferral not as a vague concept, but as something that builds pressure in the system—especially as product lifecycles mature.
The bottom line
Tomalak and Belk aren’t pitching a dramatic collapse. They’re arguing that 2027 is set up to be a cycle defined by second-order effects:
- Demand softness amplified by uncertainty and tighter credit
- Price increases that look modest in “spend” data but hide mix and margin erosion
- A genuine share reshuffle as suppliers decide how much pain to absorb
- A growing gap between headline housing metrics and the product dollars that actually show up in sales
- New construction starts that matter less than options per home and category rotation
- A deferral backlog that makes 2028+ structurally different once replacement math takes over
To get the full context—and the practical implications behind each of these points—watch the on-demand webinar.
Discover the data in Building Products Outlook
Want to go beyond the insights shared in this webinar? Zonda’s Building Products Outlook delivers ongoing, curated research, proprietary forecasts, and thoughtful analysis from Todd Tomalak and Jacob Belk. From shifting market dynamics and product demand to emerging opportunities across channels and categories, Building Products Outlook helps you stay informed and make more confident, data-driven decisions.
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