This year’s Consumer Electronics Show was dominated by new smart home technologies, including everything from video wall paper to robots to the now insanely popular home voice control.

As interesting as these technologies are to consumers, they are just as complex to builders. How can they be integrated into housing? And, maybe more importantly, how can they be integrated in a way that lasts?

This was the discussion at the recent International Builders’ Show, during a session by Ric Johnson, founder of Right @Home Technologies; Melissa Morman, client experience officer at BDX; Avi Rosenthal, founder and owner of IoT consulting, LLC; Julie Jacobson, founding editor of CE Pro, EH publishing; and Delia Hansen, VP of sales and marketing at Clare Controls.

The evolution of home technology has gone from being owned by small companies to the Apples, the Amazons, and the Googles. This means that the technology is much more accessible to consumers, which also means that they have an expectation of seeing these technologies in their homes.

Morman points out that there is a shift at CES; where it formally was all about electronics, it’s evolving to be more about consumers. Consumers are demanding features and benefits that then need to be incorporated in the next version of a product. Morman believes that it’s not only about the tangible products, but it’s also about how the product, service, and benefits are marketed to consumers. As builders and suppliers, it’s necessary to speak to the consumers’ expectations.

For instance, Rosenthal spoke about an app that Samsung has developed that allows the user to check their refrigerator on demand—a homeowner can check whether they have milk in the fridge while they are standing in the dairy aisle at the grocery store. This speaks to consumers’ needs for instant information, convenience, and efficiency.

With all of these technologies at hand, how can builders evolve and incorporate it in a way that isn’t outdated in six months? The panel offered these tips:

1. Stay on top of privacy issues. After this administration, there will be new rules and regulations dealing with the privacy of data in home networks.
2. Let your buyers choose the voice control system. They will have their personal preference of Amazon, Google Home, or Siri, and giving them the choice allows you to stick with the products that you are already sourcing.
3. Make sure that the products that you are sourcing have an open API. This will help you future-proof and easily swap out when and if necessary.
4. Meet the right bandwidth needs—the new standard is three times what it was just a few years ago.
5. Run conduit as a simple and inexpensive solution to future proof.
6. Find and hire a technologist who understands your buyer and who understands how the building process works. They will be key to identifying access points in the house.
7. Go wireless if you can. If the technology isn’t constantly sending loads of information, it’s a good opportunity to go wireless.
8. Seek out mesh networking, which will amplify across all devices with that technology, like Bluetooth.
9. Pay attention to strong cell signals.
10. Run coax to an antenna because we are going back to antennas.

This advice should help eliminate outdated technology risks and put builders in a comfortable position to upgrade when needed. Rosenthal suggests that builders look at the cars that their average home buyers are buying to understand the level of technology to add to your homes. If your average buyer buys a Tesla, then you need to have a high level of technology.

Smart home technology doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. We’re now seeing manufacturers partner with tech companies to integrate WiFi or smart systems into appliances—GE Appliances has ovens that connect with both Amazon Alexa and Nest—and builders pairing with smart home companies to bring turn-key home automation to the market.

But some consumers still have reservations about living in, using, and paying the price for a smart home.

At the 2017 International Builders’ Show last week in Orlando, Fla., a panel of smart home experts in the home building industry discussed the misconceptions surrounding what consumers think about smart homes, and how to get homebuyers over their fears and excited about home technology. Here are some of the most common myths they hear, and how to bust them:

Smart homes are expensive
It would be a logical assumption that smart home features can come with a hefty price tag. But there are many low-cost smart systems and devices that can be integrated into the home, such as lighting, smart security door locks, door bell cameras, and thermostats. Connected systems such as Z-Wave and Wink are good options for more affordable smart home hubs.

Mike Hetherman, president, owner and CEO of building material distributor Willis, emphasized that when it comes to technology, we can’t focus too much on the price, since technology will bring many other non-monetary benefits to a homeowner’s lifestyle, like more time with family and increased convenience. “Once we have these features, we won’t want to give them up,” he says.

Only millennials want home technology
While younger generations have a reputation for being more tech savvy than their baby boomer counterparts, builders assuming the 55-plus buyer doesn’t want home technology would be missing out on an opportunity with this demographic. Older generations want technology just as much as everyone else, though they look for different kinds of ways the technology can be used in their homes.

Ric Johnson of Ohio-based RL Johnson Construction Services and Right at Home Technologies, who has done extensive work with aging in place design, says that baby boomer buyers want their homes adapted with technology, but not changed. They desire practical upgrades, such as lighting that activates when they come home at night or when they walk into a dark room. Or power blinds and automated doors that they don’t have to operate themselves. Anything that’s connected and makes navigating through the home easier without too much thought will be a hit with older buyers.

A smart home has too many gadgets and gizmos to keep track of
This can be true, but only when organized poorly. As the presenters emphasized, smart home technology should be seamlessly integrated into the home and should enhance the life of a homeowner without them noticing. Practical touches such as phone charging stations built into the kitchen countertop or motion sensor lighting are examples of technology features that homeowners won’t feel like they have to keep track of.

Start with a base system, like Z-wave or Nexia, that allows homeowners to add devices that work together as part of one network. When they can control the home from one hub, or set specific “scenes” where multiple devices act simultaneously, the number of devices won’t feel overwhelming. Integrate technology features that respond automatically, such as the Nest thermostat, which learns the preferences of homeowners itself and adjusts accordingly.

Smart technology systems and features should be integrated into the home as part of the process from day one, not as an afterthought. Builders thinking about including smart features in new construction homes could consider partnering with a smart technology provider or professional who can help you design a “smart-ready” home.

Home technology is unnecessary
When asked, most homeowners would say that they don’t need a smart home, commonly due to the fact that they think they can get by just fine without being able to preheat their oven on the way home from work or look inside their refrigerator from the grocery store. But as Hetherman puts it, “people don’t know what they want until you show them.” With well designed smart home systems, where the technology is integrated in a way that homeowners don’t even know it’s there, today’s buyer will find that they don’t want to live without their smart home technology.

A smart home is about the lifestyle. “You have to flip the script in how you talk to your clients about smart home technology,” says Jamie Briesemiester, sales and marketing director of St. Louis-based Integration Controls . “Instead of asking ‘do you want a smart home?’, you would ask, ‘do you want an easier way to do this?’ You have to talk about the value of what the technology can do for [a homeowner’s] lifestyle, instead of just the technology itself.”

The big show in Orlando this week proves this much. Builders and their partners in the home building products, materials, and services world know well that these are uncertain times starting out of the gate in 2017. Nevertheless, they also know that sitting back and waiting for outside conditions to play out and get clearer is no way to deal with the limbo of uncertainty.

Going for a good year–damn the labor, lots, lending, regulation, and political conditions–with gusto is the only way they know, and if it’s not that good, the moment to deal with that head-on is now.

For the as many as 80,000 builders and remodelers and their partners as well as 1,500 exhibitors all working the floor, the meeting rooms, and the networking receptions at the 2017 National Association of Home Builders International Builders’ Show, it’s now time to head back home and jump into the weeds of strong execution. February 5, after all, is Super Bowl LI day, so the countdown to Spring Selling 2017 is nearing its home stretch.

The focus, the well of curiosity, the steady stream of enthusiasm, and the thread of openness and generosity that reached every nook and cranny of three mammoth show halls sprawled across 569,000 square feet of exhibit space, and many, many session rooms, not to mention coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and accidental social spaces was energizing.

For the Hanley Wood edit content team, the days here in Orlando reaffirm our love affair with the community of artisans, craftspeople, business people, engineers, analysts, technicians, creatives, project managers, procurement specialists, and the entire ecosystem of “builders”–on the job-sites and off them–who make homes, and make communities of good homes.

It’s exhilarating, whether the focus is on thermal bridging, or the water barrier, or jobsite safety, or automated room-air comfort, or consumer trends or preferences, or Revit modeling, or site optimization, or integrated vignettes, or plug-and-play installation, or modularization, or collaborative tools, or ease of use, or speed of application, or transitional, or modern, or traditional design, or a memory point, or a behind-the-wall moisture barrier, or an indoor-outdoor living retractable glass wall … what, and how builders build is in a state of rapid transformation.

That’s true, no matter what anybody says about home building being averse to innovation. If there were 80,000 attendees at this year’s show, 80,000 people, down to the person, is seeing changes happening, and more changes coming in the way they ply their trade, make their money, carry out their purpose in our society and our economy.

The 80,000 people who came here to Orlando, and the ones still back on the jobs sites, in the offices, etc., are voting with their feet to be part of that dynamic change, pushing it into houses and communities, square foot by square foot, responding to that singular motivational force: how do people want to live?

And the good news is, according to our own Metrostudy chief economist Mark Boud, between now and 2020, builders can expect continued growth (faster through 2018, and slowing down through 2020). Here’s a slide from Mark’s most recent projections, presented at the 2017 Metrostudy Outlook Breakfast during this week’s show, showing three scenarios for housing starts volume over the next four years.

Here, we see Mark’s forecast on undervaluation (relative affordability) vs. overvaluation (lack of affordability) in the next few years. Importantly, Mark sees a shift in 2017, an inflection pivot from home properties that are undervalued on average to where they’re overvalued, thanks to dirt-cheap mortgage rates coupled with restricted for-sale supply, and the price and cost pressures of land use regulation, labor inputs, and materials inflation.

Here’s Mark’s commentary on some of the key drivers over the next stretch in the housing market.

• Job growth may increase in 2017/18 from 2016 levels
• Household income growth will accelerate through Year 2019
• Housing shortages will become more intense. Look for an accelerated and shorter, sharper real estate cycle, with a peak in the 2018/19 time frame
• An extended period of low mortgage rates has allowed home prices (and land values) to rise higher and more rapidly than they should have. Rising mortgage rates may contribute to severe over valuation in many markets, despite only modest price appreciation during the next few years
• A higher national Debt-to-GDP ratio will lead to higher interest payments which will eventually dilute US currency and slow the US economy
• Careful research and accurate data analysis have never been more important than in the current cycle!

You can connect directly to Mark Boud’s entire presentation and forecast here.

Finally, I want to say thank you to a team of people who’ve joined me this week in Orlando, fanning out through the exhibit halls, catching as many educational sessions as is humanly possible, and reporting what they’ve been hearing and seeing to you on a real-time, daily basis. From Journal of Light Construction editorial director Clayton DeKorne, to ProSales and Remodeling editor in chief Craig Webb, to our BUILDER team of Jennifer Goodman, Kayla Devon, and Lauren Shanesy, and Remodeling/ProSales assistant editor Marisa Mendez, all backed up by Brian Croce and Mary Salmonsen in the D.C. offices of Hanley Wood, the team made a huge effort this week and their work shows.

Here’s just a sampling:

IBS 2017: BEST DESIGN SOLUTIONS FOR THE 55+ BUYER

INDUSTRY EXPERTS EXPECT 55+ MARKET TO CONTINUE RISE

IBS 2017: DAY 1 PRODUCT FINDS

IBS 2017: DAY 2 PRODUCT FINDS

NKBA SURVEY: WHAT DESIGN CHOICES ARE TRENDING IN KITCHEN AND BATHS

ROOFING MANUFACTURER LOWERS PRICES BY UP TO 16%

ENERGIZE YOUR BUYERS WITH DESIGN HOT SPOTS

SHOW REPORT: A FIRST LOOK AT NEW PRODUCTS

Awesome team effort here, and I hope you’ll stay in touch with us on any new development or trend you see coming down the pike in 2017. Our entire Hanley Wood and Metrostudy team wishes all success for the business and building community in the months ahead.

Today’s 55+ market has significantly changed from what it used to be. These communities were previously thought of as seniors housing, but with the healthy, active lifestyles of today’s Baby Boomers, 55+ housing doesn’t have to be anything close to the boring, institutional style of seniors housing.

Active adult buyers are having the time of their life. They’re kids are finally leaving the house and they’re rediscovering who they are and how they want their life to look – and they have the money to do so. This demographic controls 70% of the disposable income in the U.S. While this group definitely has the funds to purchase a new home, they also don’t necessarily need it, making home buying a discretionary purchase.

“With Baby Boomers, 47% of them might be shopping for a home, but only 36% are buyers,” said Lita Dirks, of design group Lita Dirks and Co., during a presentation at the International Builders’ Show in Orlando this week.

The main reason more of these shoppers don’t make the final decision to buy comes down to the product, which is where builders can learn a few tricks to win the shopper over. Here, Dirks describes a few different ways to do so:

Make It Exciting – since this is a discretionary purchase for them, it becomes much more about the “wow” factor. What’s going to make them fall in love with the home? Going above and beyond in the design and finishes, with touches or grand entry ways and pops of color are great to thrill these shoppers with all the possibilities. Offer them something new that they hadn’t thought about, and likely aren’t getting in their current living space.

Include a Flex Room – these buyers are finally chasing their hobbies after all those years of chasing the kids. While the 55+ market likes to entertain and needs guest rooms, a flex space is a great way to combine uses for an office, a yoga room, a den, and spare bedroom. In the presentation, Dirks specifically mentions high-end murphy beds that can convert from sleek seating or bookshelves into a comfortable bed when necessary.

Storage – People can collect a lot of items in 55 years, so they need the space to put it all. Whie they’re downsizing, they’re not about to give up some important possessions. Include (and highlight with marketing tools) wherever this shopper can store their items, from extra large pantries in the kitchen to walk-in closets. Additionally, the kitchen should feature some “collectables” storage for finer items like china or specialty wines.

Outdoor Living to Match the Indoors – maximizing the space where these buyers can entertain is key, which means expanding the outdoor living to be more of a go-to. A covered, all-climate space is best, with separate living, kitchen, and dining areas, just like an indoor living space features.

Aging in Place – Most important is making aging easy without being obvious. These buyers don’t want to consider or be reminded that their eyesight or hips might not be as functional as they used to be. Add touches like additional lighting with extra windows, under-mount LED strips, and light switches that glow. Also, minimize stairs. Master bedrooms on the first floor are a must-have, non-negotiable item for this buyer. All main living should be on the first floor, but stairs are OK if it’s for an spare bedroom for guests or additional storage.

Customization – Again, this buyer needs this home to feel like it was made just for them to make them want to splurge. Some easy areas for added customization include island sizes and types, flex room extras like a murphy bed or entertainment center, and choices for kitchen accessories like pet-focused products, dedicated office space, or wine storage.

Low Maintenance – attention to detail is key to keeping down the maintenance. This buyer is ready to enjoy herself after years of maintaining a household. Avoid roof designs that allow leaves to clutter and use more durable surfaces like laminate instead of hardwood and quartz instead of granite. Larger tiles also remove the amount of grout necessary, keeping cleaning to a minimum.

The construction industry is facing a severe labor shortage. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median age of construction industry workers is 42.8, with young workers under 34 accounting for less than one third of the total workforce. A different report from the U.S. Census also finds that new hires of younger construction workers continue to trend down. Millennials—currently the largest labor force in America—do not seem ready to take over those who are about to retire. One of the biggest hurdles to overcoming the labor shortage has become how to attract younger generations to enter the home building field.

Home services firm HomeAdvisor recently published a report that identifies current barriers to filling construction labor jobs, and offers tips to help builders overcome the issue. The company surveyed 282 home building/improvement professionals in fields like remodeling, plumbing, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, roofing, and contracting projects.

Why aren’t young people pursuing construction jobs? One reason is the perception that white-collar jobs are more respectable than blue-collar jobs. A survey by the Associated General Contractors of America, cited by the report, finds that high-skill occupations like carpenters, sheet metal installers, and concrete workers have the highest labor shortages. The HomeAdvisor report, citing research from Kimmel & Associates, reveals that many young people may not be interested in the “dirty work” associated with skilled labor jobs, and would prefer to earn a college degree in order to pursue traditional professions.

Lack of professional exposure and training processes in the construction field are also to blame, according to the report.

“Over the past several years, American high schools have phased out vocational programs and encouraged students to focus more on obtaining a four-year college degree — thereby reducing in-school exposure to skilled labor trades,” said Marianne Cusato, a HomeAdvisor housing expert and architecture professor at the University of Notre Dame.

So, how to woo young workers? The report gives out four suggestions to builders:

• Rebuilding the image of construction works. According to the report, 61% of skilled laborers believe that there’s a lack of exposure to building occupations for younger generations. They believe that more young people will be encouraged to join the work force after knowing that the home building industry, as one of the country’s most important and stable economic sectors, is well-paid, skill-intensive, and respectable.

• Offering alternative educational opportunities. It is important for construction professionals to cooperate with education institutions and policymakers to establish an educational system that prepares young people to work for the home building/improvement industry. This method can also provide younger generations with more choices, other than the four-year college degree.

• Bringing back mentorships and apprenticeships. The report reveals that mentorships, apprenticeships, and family support are the most important drivers of initial professional interest in the home building industry. Therefore, establishing mentorship and apprenticeship programs that connect young people with experienced industry professionals will be an effective way for builders to pass along career wisdom and provide specific feedback to young learners.

• Inspiring entrepreneurship. According to the report, about 60% of millennials say that business ownership is their primary motivation when they begin their chosen profession (others attribute that motivation to the perception that entrepreneurs benefit from flexible hours and autonomy). By emboldening entrepreneurship in the home building industry and searching for new, innovative ways to achieve goals, builders will be able to attract more young people (although more on the business side of the aisle).