The Carolina Contractor Show
The Carolina Contractor Show
Top 3 Homebuilding Trends for 2025
Bacon might steal the opening, but the real feast here is a tour of where homebuilding is headed—and how to make smarter choices without spending more than you need. We dig into the surprising benefits of building smaller, then show how thoughtful design—10-foot ceilings, full-height storage, and slab-on-grade shop-plus-suite layouts—can turn compact footprints into flexible, livable homes that age with you.
From there we move into resilience. Fortified roofs with better nails, sealed underlayments, and coastal-grade fasteners can cut insurance costs while boosting peace of mind. We compare high-performance panelized shells promising fire, wind, and seismic resistance, and talk honestly about what holds them back: price, manufacturing capacity, and permitting. On the flip side, modular and prefab homes promise speed, but hidden finish work, basic window packages, and transport wear can offset the savings. The smarter play today may be selectively adopting prefab components—like prebuilt dormers—where precision pays off most.
Smart tech finally feels smart. AI room planners let you test paint, floors, and trim in seconds, saving time and mistakes. More importantly, a unified platform like Control4 can run devices from different brands through one brain, ditching a dozen apps for reliable routines. We even wade into emerging health sensors in the bathroom—why proactive insights could help, and when constant data might do more harm than good. Finally, we examine embedded insurance during closing: it’s convenient and can surface coverage gaps early, but independent brokers still win on options, pricing, and bedside manner when claims happen.
If you care about affordability, durability, and sanity, this conversation gives you a blueprint: design only what you’ll use, invest in resilience that pays back, and make your tech work for you—not the other way around. If this helped you think differently about your next build or upgrade, subscribe, share with a friend who’s planning a project, and leave a quick review so more homeowners can find it.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with your host, General Contractor Donnie Blanchard.
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SPEAKER_01:Donnie Blanchard, when was the last time you went to the NC State Fair? Man, it's had to have been almost a decade ago. What's the one thing they always talk about at the State Fair year after year? Ah, if I had to choose between rides or food, it's gotta be the food, man. It's always the weird new food items. I had a coworker who went this uh past weekend. They said bacon is the name of the game, and he said his favorite was the uh bacon mac and cheese cone. There was bacon donuts, and he said just about anything you wanted bacon on, they had it out there at the fair. Some of the other big things I thought this was sounded good. Uh brown sugar hush puppies. I could have that at breakfast. Yeah, I don't do breakfast, but yeah, that does sound good. Okay, Mr. Literal, but it would be a breakfast food, you dork. Um cheese curd tacos, and another highlight was Carolina Hoe Down, but that evidently wasn't a food. That was just a warning that someone had fallen. But we were not gonna we won't go in the details, but uh you know what? That would be a good subject for a future show of the Carolina contractor. Absolutely. Carolina Hodown. Yeah, we'll have to figure out how to work that in. Is it a person or is it a thing? Hey everybody, it's Carolina Contractor Show. Don't know if you went to the fair. Uh, me and Donnie have reached that point that our kids are older, so we really don't drag out to big events. But still, a fun thing to do, and everybody talks about the fair, and the theme of the fair is bacon. So today's keyword is going to be bacon, and that's significant because at the end of the show, you'll have a chance to win wonderful prizes if you remember that keyword. If you go to the website, though, you can learn more about the show. That's the Carolinacontractor.com. We've got past episodes there. We got the links to the YouTube page, our social media, our Instagram and our um Facebook and stuff like that. If you have a question about this show, a past show, a future show idea, maybe you have a question about something you want to uh us to do a show on, or you maybe have a question about your house. We got a great little button called Ask the Contractor. It goes to Donnie Blanchard. He is, of course, our resident general contractor. So hit the website, the Carolinacontractor.com. You got anything else uh going on in your world, Donnie, before we kick off?
SPEAKER_00:No, um just grateful that the weather is so beautiful and uh everybody seems to be affected by that. Everybody's in a good mood, and and on the job sites we still have long days. Well, for the most part, it gets darker at seven or so, but uh this is that sweet spot when you are catching up on all your summer work and and really trying to batten down the hatches for winter. So all is well in my world, but thank you for asking.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you get more work done because you're also not sweating it out like you were this past June and July.
SPEAKER_00:No doubt. This is honeydew season for me, so I'm I'm getting it done, man.
SPEAKER_01:Things are good on both ends of the spectrum. We're gonna jump in today's show, and it's uh building the future, not back to the future, but building the future. And Donnie did some research and uh we thought this would make a good show. We think a lot of listeners, whether you are buying a house, if you're thinking about buying a house, you've been a homeowner for a long time, uh it's it's cool stuff that's coming up, but it's mainly with home building. This isn't necessarily retrofitting an existing house, uh, but they're building trends that are shaping up this year and going obviously beyond. The first thing on this list that I thought was amazing, Donnie, was are we reverting the downsizing to smaller homes? The square footage has actually dropped now over the uh past uh 10 years.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and I'm really glad to see that. You know, I'm a big proponent of uh first-time home buyers having an affordable option, and you can't hide square footage. So I I really feel like if we downsize with the square footage and just make it make sense for a small, maybe family of four, maybe family of five, and the more you can squeeze in there, you know, the the better for them because in terms of affordability, there there's just no no good option for somebody in their early to mid-20s, especially if you have a child incorporated into that. So uh I think downsizing the square footage is very is a very wise move. It's nothing we're doing on purpose, but uh the national trend that you just mentioned is a real thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so to give people actual footage numbers in 2015, which they consider the peak, the average house was twenty six hundred and eighty-nine square feet, and as of twenty twenty-three, it was twenty-four eleven. Uh for perspective, I always thought my house was uh uh bigger than the average bear, at least in my neighborhood, I'm at uh like uh twenty-two fifty. Um so I'm still below what the average lowest is. But once one kid moves out or goes to college, like in my case, the house gets really big really quick. So I'm not against thinking when you're building a house, maybe lower that square footage because a lot of times you end up having wasted space or that one room that ends up being a third or fourth bedroom that is just stacked with boxes and storage and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a catch-all for sure. And um, I think thinking forward on whether or not you're on family land or if you you know could be okay to sell when the kids move out if there's no sentimental attachment there, uh, those are all good factors. But one thing that I'm I'm seeing is uh the the young folks well actually I designed um a shopslash mother-in-law suite for a younger couple, and they both get the best of both worlds because uh he gets a shop, it's about a 30 by 40 shop, um little under that, but there's a mother-in-law suite that's a one-bedroom attached to the the side, and we we really got creative because we made the ceilings 10 foot and the mother-in-law suite, which the you know the cost to go from eight foot to nine foot to ten-foot ceilings is it's a real number, but you're not talking thousands and thousands of dollars. And uh another thing we're gonna do is is do eight-foot doors, which puts the header height at the windows and doors at eight foot. So uh what we're doing is taking advantage of the cubic footage of a 10-foot ceiling, and when we run our cabinets, we're gonna run those all the way to the ceiling. So instead of having space uh for a pantry, we're gonna have space for upper cabinets. And will you have to have a step stool? Probably, but you know, that that's a small price to pay for a house slash shop combo that that is gonna save you$200,000 compared to the same square footage of a house. You know, you want to entertain, you got your shop. You want to have all your friends over, you got the shop, and then you've got a door to the house where you can prepare everything with the kitchen. It is only a one uh one bathroom, but I really like it. And after I finished the design and the blueprints, I looked back and thought, there's a lot of young people that when they see this thing finished, they're gonna jump on board.
SPEAKER_01:Some of the Leonard type sheds, the designs are really cool. Could those be modified to be qualify as a legitimate livable part of uh a property?
SPEAKER_00:Hmm, that's a good question. Um, I think if you can insulate and condition anything, then the answer is probably yes. You know, how you incorporate plumbing and uh electrical into that is when you start getting into the inspections department and the pushback from the municipalities. So I think it's it's probably an engineering nightmare to try to make a storage shed into a livable space, but I'm sure it can be done. You know, the the tiny house thing is is catching fire right now, and uh several people, uh my understanding, there's several people around the county that are wanting to take land and do tiny house developments, and and um I'm not against that. You know, that versus a mobile home park is sounds pretty attractive. It sounds like they could um probably clean it up a little bit better with restrictive covenants and so forth. So I'm not I'm not opposed to it. I just think that I think it's on the way. I think some some solution other than government and interest rates is on the way, and I I'm I'm pulling for that because I have young kids and and you know lots of uh folks in their younger 20s that that I'm I really hope have a chance like we did to have home ownership at a at an affordable price, and it just ain't there right now.
SPEAKER_01:I'll tell you what, uh I'm thinking down the road, but uh I would be perfectly content if my kids built me not uh I don't like the micro tiny homes where your living room converts to your kitchen, converts to your bedroom, but think of a a large storage type building, but nice, so a stick built, and maybe it's two-roomed or partitioned. If it's got running water, you know, a bathroom and a and a sink and and the basics, if my kids said, Hey dad, we're gonna put one of these with a covered walkway out, it's gonna be 25 feet from the house, it'll be electric and conditioned, and you can be in there if you need to. I'm talking, you know, I'm 75, 80 years old. They can have a little camera in it or have me with a collar that beeps if I fall down. But I could spend the bulk of my waking time in the the house. I wouldn't, I don't see myself having a problem with it. And I think it'd, you know, hey, family stays together that way, and but you're not intruding or always in the big house with them. Everybody gets a break.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, for sure. And like I said, with the garage uh slash mother-in-law suite concept, you know, everything's on a slab, so that's handicap accessibility right out of the gate because everything's on a perfectly flat slab, so you don't have stairs associated with that. And uh yeah, I agree with that, and it's funny you say that. I'd say seven out of ten houses that I build, the man always says, Well, I didn't want this. You know, she wanted all that 5,000 square foot house, but I I could live in my garage. And like I think we're all pretty much wired the same. And uh, yeah, same here, but if mama ain't happy, you know how that saying goes.
SPEAKER_01:Give me a TV and uh an FL Sunday ticket, and you know, I don't have to see you for uh a whole weekend if you prefer it. And honey, I did something bad. Can I be sent to my little uh man cave house? Right.
SPEAKER_00:I'm not there yet, E, but I'm I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to get there.
SPEAKER_01:I'm just planning. I plan way ahead. All right, another topic uh building for extreme weather. We this is kind of a no-brainer. Now, extreme weather isn't new, but techniques of building homes to be uh more extreme weather resistant is uh in demand. Are you, Donnie, as a builder, seeing more demand for that or people ask questions, hey, what can we do to make sure this house is a little bit stronger when those storms come?
SPEAKER_00:So we live in that really nice area of North Carolina. We're in central North Carolina, so that's a sweet spot where our weather is bad from time to time, but we don't get the hurricanes like they do at the coast. And uh, you know, fortunately, the floods like they did in the mountains, which sounds crazy, but that just happened. Um I, you know, I think that certain parts of the country, I when I do my uh when I brush up on my articles, I see things like out west where they have hailstorms uh frequently, then they're they have the impact resistant glass that becomes uh a pretty much regular thing. And um in terms of roofing at the coast, of course, I do roofing as well. So I uh we had some experience with fortified roofs back during the hurricanes of 2018. That seemed to be the hot topic. And a fortified roof, it's just a handful of things that you do differently where they require a certain amount of nails per shingle, which we do anyway, and uh they require stainless steel nails, which is you know just common sense if you are within five miles of the coastline, and just a handful of other things, meaning like the underlayment of the ice and water shield laps over the starter strip in a certain place, and and they just had a few things that they would come and check. But I I will take my hat off and say that the they did a good job. The inspectors were on point, and that fortified uh certification would actually save you money monthly on your insurance premium. So it was legit. And I I want to say the cost might have been around a grand, and that was from the the extra materials to the inspection cost. But uh, if you add that up uh year by year, then that that's really a big savings in your pocket. So I think the fortified thing was legit. Some of the other stuff, the impact resistant glass that I mentioned earlier, they charge an arm and a leg for that because not everybody does it. A lot of window manufacturers just don't have the capability to crank those out. So uh they they kind of have a monopoly on that market with just a few um folks that make windows. So I don't think that it's where it will be, but uh, I'm kind of on the fence about this one. Like I know it makes sense and it's not like green, we're not we're not, you know, gonna we're not gonna save the planet with this kind of stuff, but you know, when a big storm comes through, do you have peace of mind? And I think that part's worth it.
SPEAKER_01:Now, one of the things I thought was cool when I was reading about some of the uh housing and and the builds that were weather resistant was this uh one company, Restructure Group's 3D panel system. Uh it's disaster-resistant paneling that you build the house with. Basically, it's a panel, multiple panels, but you get a panel and the it's concrete on the interior and exterior side combined for one and a quarter inch of concrete. And the that makes it not um proof, but fire resistant, hurricane resistant, uh, tornadoes, seismic resistant. It's just gonna be able to absorb a lot more of the shock that a weather or a storm can give you than the average house. Inside the middle, and I thought you'd find this interesting because we talk about insulation, it's insulated and it's also mold, insect, vermin resistant. Um, and then to keep it all tight and right, it's got this proprietary, which means they ain't sharing this technology yet. It's got this proprietary steel truss system that holds it all together. So you can order these panels, basically Lego assemble the house, and then you can dress up the exterior and interior through paint or siding or something like that. But talk about just building a a beautiful uh house. The shell, everything looks great, but inside it's got all those uh severe weather and and uh I I think in California, seismic issues that it makes it more resistant. That's a smart way to build.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, I I can't disagree with that, not at all. I mean, it sounds fascinating. Uh again, where we are in our part of the world, we don't we don't really have to deal with a lot of the things they do on the West Coast. So of course my brain, my builder brain goes back to how much does that really cost? And you know, if if I I know around here, gosh, houses, little houses are 400,000, 500,000 now. So uh I'm guessing out there when that would have the equivalent of a house would have been 800 to a million, then that's probably doubling that to build one that way. And I don't know, I think the key is just them figuring out how to get it to the population in an affordable manner, and then you know, cutting on a lot of the red tape that's gonna be required by the inspections departments. And I don't know. It's all it's all um it's all one of those things where if it works, great, but the implementation is gonna take years and years, and um I don't know if that'll ever hit around here.
SPEAKER_01:Uh this is Carolina contractor show. We're talking about some building trends, and uh the redheaded stepchild has always been the modular prefab homes. Uh is that maybe changing? We know they're cheaper, but we always thought they're cheaper because they're cheaper. Are you seeing their quality increasing?
SPEAKER_00:Not at all. And I just got my first look at one this past week. So I'm gonna help a uh friend of the family basically finish the upstairs in their modular, and uh, I was itching to get in there. And um, you know, the the sales pitch with a modular is if you can transport it down the road to 55 miles an hour, it's gotta be good. And I'm like, you know, uh I get that, but what does it look like at the end of that trip? You know, that this particular house, the shingles had been peeled back. I mean, they had they did as much as they could at the factory, and another sales pitch that they have is that everything's laser precise because it's cut in a controlled environment, and all that's just I'm sorry, but all that's just BS. And um, it, you know, I'll have a lot more to say about it after I help them finish the upstairs, but little things like they do the bare minimum on windows, and that being said, the building code does hold them accountable to a certain standard, so they do have to meet the building code, but uh how that inspections process goes, I don't know because when it shows up, it's got drywall, uh, everything that's behind the walls that you can't see is all in place already. So I I'm just I'm not a fan because of course they um they they're part of my competition, and I don't even really think that because a custom built home versus a modular is just is no kind, it's no comparison. But at the same time, uh what I've seen them do because they're smart and they're sell they're cranking these things out left and right. And if I tell the uh a scenario a popular scenario is if I tell a customer, hey, I'm gonna be about six to eight months, maybe a year before I can start your house, well, they're saying, hey, we can get a foundation in there and we can have you in in four or five months, but you still have to do a septic, you still have to do a well. There's a lot of legwork around actually the setting of the house. And then when you get the house set, so many things they paint them just a standard color. So you've got to paint the whole house, you've got to set out the fixtures, and you've got to do a lot of the siding on the outside, you have to complete the roof. So there's still a lot to do. And my reason for saying that is that they're expensive, man. I I know somebody, a 2,000 square foot house that got away from me not long ago because I just couldn't start in their timeline and they were expecting a baby. They went and paid over$400,000 for a modular and they weren't happy with it. I say that to say a lot of people are okay and they just they need a roof over their head, and it beats the crap out of renting an apartment because at least you're a homeowner, but several factors to take into consideration with a modular.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Yeah, you're right. You rent an apartment and when you want to move out, you have no equity because you are renting. I don't care what the manufacturers say, the chances or the percentage of manufactured homes that go up in value is gonna be more related to the land and location they're at if you own the land than it is gonna be the building. And they're gonna put everything in a nice little package and say, hey, here's a great deal on a house, much like you sell a car. They're not gonna tell you the price of the car. They're gonna say, what will it take for me to put you in this house today? And they've got that all figured out. The fees to get it to your lot, to hook it up. Oh, they're now selling the appliances because that doesn't come with it. And they all say the same things why you should buy a modular home. We build them faster. Well, there's a reason they can build them faster. Uh, they're more affordable. There's a reason they're more affordable. Sustainability, they're trying to use the green angle now. Well, we're using uh recycled parts. Yeah, I don't want my house made out of milk jugs. You gotta look at all the reasons they're selling. They're not selling higher quality or better or even equal quality as say a custom build or a stick built. And you've got to watch out if you're thinking this is a good move, as you said. They're as expensive as some small houses, and the rates and the things you can get caught in through contract can really hurt you.
SPEAKER_00:They've come a long way, and I will say, you know, 20 years ago that uh modular home is is what we would think of as two single-wide trailers put together at a marriage wall. So basically a double wide, and and they're all rectangular, simple roof structure. Um, but now they they've really gotten complicated and uh they've pushed the threshold of of in the design world. So they they've done just about everything they can do to try to change it up. And this particular one I looked at the other day, you know, it was still you know two now mostly narrow parts put together, but they did have a framer coming in to frame a big gable on the front. So I think one thing that they're trying to do to evolve is they are incorporating stick-built components and uh just trying to make it look a little more custom with the finished product. So if I ever saw an area where modular could uh where modular could take off or I could even incorporate that into my world, things like dormers. So if they could build a dormer in a warehouse and send me a dormer that I could just plug and play, that'd be wonderful. If you've ever tried to frame, dormers will make you really good at cursing. And uh, and and I mean if you think about it this way, somebody worded it like this a long time ago. There's just as many cuts in a dormer as there are, you know, a whole room. And so, you know, you build these three dormers that somebody wanted for decoration. They're they're problematic in terms of a roof leak, you know, it's a roof penetration that's just not not a great thing. It doesn't allow a lot of natural light in, not a lot of extra headspace. You don't get the square footage that you're you're really um you're adding to the um the interior, but you know, that natural light, those windows, and what it looks like from the front elevation is why they do it, but I'm not a fan.
SPEAKER_01:I want to get on one thing that I'm very excited about. We've done multiple uh shows on smart devices and how AI can assist your house. Um AI and automation is driving the next phase of of home design in every aspect. My wife and I are looking at putting in flooring and doing some painting. You can now take a picture of your room with all the clutter, upload it, it'll clean out the clutter, and then you just click on the floor and change it to whatever color style you want, click on the walls, the painting, change the trim in a matter of seconds. Uh, and and you can do it to build a house. Again, we've got past shows at the Carolina Contractor where we did a whole thing on smart designs, things like that. Okay, what I wanted to say that really got me excited is there's a company out called Control 4, and they may have solved the equivalent of uh streaming services. You know how you have to have like 11 streaming services to get all the shows you want to watch, and everybody says, remember the old days where you just had one thing and you got all that stuff? Control 4 has an integrated home management system for all your AI and smart devices, and it can work any combination of smart devices, even if they're made by different manufacturers, into this one unit and run them all from the one control center, from the one brain center. So you don't have to only use one type of smart device for your doors, windows, lights. Whatever you have, it can integrate them into it. And again, one controller. You don't even need apps anymore to control all your smart devices in your house.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's been a long time coming, man. I I know that everybody's been competing. Honeywell, Nest, uh, Ecobee, everybody's got their best version of the same product out there, but I think that's genius. And um, what's the price tag on that control for?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it like anything, it depends on what you want it to do, how many services you have. If I could have one device this big and I could control everything that's from a different manufacturer, I'm already interested in getting it.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, one thing that uh jumps off the page this week I ran across the coolest smart device, and I I think the technology's still got a long way to go. I sent it to the group text, the family group text, and I got just drilled because everybody's thinking, you know, are you serious? Is this really a thing? I'm not taking pictures of my poop. And what it is, is a uh it's a Kohler, you know, Kohler is a popular name in plumbing, but it's a um it's basically a uh health analyzing uh toilet attachment, and it's called a Dakota. So if you look up Kohler Health online, Kohler Health will take you to the page that has the Dakota is their featured item, and Dakota is with a E. It's a D-E-K-O-T-A, I believe. But um it has uh 1,200 sensors built into it, and it kind of looks like one of those little air fresheners that clips on the inside of your toilet, but a little wider. And um anyway, um it analyzes any kind of uh matter that ends up in the toilet, you know, daily. And uh everybody gave me hell about it, but I thought if there's something out there that can get ahead of something that might take you out of this world, then I'm all about it. It's six hundred dollars right now, and uh so you know I do know that that's that's probably the pilot program for this kind of technology, but and it'll only get better, but I just think it's awesome that something will monitor your daily your daily progress and you know could potentially give you a lead that saves your life.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm not saying I'm against it, but me being surviv uh securing my salvation of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I don't want to leave this world early, but I know my destination. I want to live, and I've had coworkers and stuff that have the smart watches, and they'll just be doing their normal routine. And I remember one on this lady, she stopped midway walking from a printer and went, my blood pressure just spiked. I wonder what's wrong. I probably should sit down. I need to check my other voice. And I'm like, I know one reason your blood pressure's going up because you're freaking out about your watch telling you your blood pressure just went up. So I'm kind of mixed on every day getting a report. Um, you know, so I'm not against it. Each his own. Um overall health is important. So you're right. If something can say, hey, you might want to have this checked out, but then there's the hypochondriacs that would just be absolutely a ball of anxiety if even more devices could tell them every nuance of their health. I've got people that tell me I've learned that I snore too much. I've got to do something about it because the stupid smart devices are analyzing their snoring and farting and everything else. Well, maybe they should they should just sell them to men because we're bad about going to the doctor.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:We wouldn't wear the watch, we wouldn't do it. We just you know, I just I would just uh probably attach to my dog just to see what the results came back, and the doctor goes, Oh my god, your heart beats 400 beats a minute. How did you run 20 miles an hour yesterday? And you've got mange. We've got to see you soon. Um, last thing I want to talk about trends, and that's gonna be uh a little technical, and I know you have a past life and insurance, uh, embedded home insurance, and it's where builders are now integrating the insurance directly into the home buying process. Um me only going through the process once, I cannot recall, but they're saying you put homeowners' policies, you could even put car and life insurance policies in the sales and closing stages of a house, and that's gonna allow the buyer to get quotes, select the coverage they want, and bind all those policies together, and their term is with minimal friction, which I mean, which they obviously mean it saves time and makes it easier. I didn't realize it was that big of a problem, but I guess it's enough of a problem or uh an issue that it's advantageous just to go ahead and have all that ready when you're closing on your house.
SPEAKER_00:Well, since this isn't a big thing yet, um it makes me think two things. Uh, number one, a pro would be that if it is tailored towards new construction homes, then they're probably gonna be uh more upfront about the options that that you may need to address. In terms we talk about having endorsements on your insurance policy like sewer backup or flood insurance, it's a completely separate policy and you're in a floodplain that a lot of people wouldn't think to even ask for that. So uh up front, if the insurance company is giving you their sales pitch, then maybe they say, hey, if you do this right now, you know, we're insuring these 100 homes in this subdivision, but we need to tell you that you need X, Y, and Z for the appropriate coverage for something that that would probably happen. The con would be that it's probably gonna be some of the big players who have commercials during the Super Bowl. So uh we always preach about uh being advocates for for smaller insurance companies because the smaller insurance companies usually represent 10, 20, 30 different companies that may be a better fit for you. So I think the fact that even though they may give you a couple options, I don't know that those couple options will be financially competitive with some of the smaller players. And some of the smaller players, if you do in fact have a claim, just have a better bedside manner, and the adjusters tend to be better because they're not staff folks who you're just a number to. So I don't know how that's gonna shake out, but it is interesting to see that they're trending in that way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know a big home builder who builds thousands, tens of thousands of homes a year, big insurance companies would be licking their chops at the opportunity to partner with them. But you're right, the independent home builder isn't gonna even be an interest to them. And I've also said when it comes to insurance, uh get an insurance broker or at least try one out because they're going to contact six, seven, eight different insurance companies and find the best rate and coverage for you. And that works very well. Get those small, independent, local people that can give you a better deal than because if you're seeing a football player with a football coach and another football player, you know right then there's millions of dollars being paid out, and they're gonna get that money back somehow or the other, and it's gonna come through policy cost.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. Kickbacks are definitely a thing with that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, we kind of run out of time, but we kind of hit everything we wanted to. So a lot of these uh these trends, some of them are construction, some of them are uh very cool with the smart device integration. I love the idea of having one controller for everything. The insurance, um, I'm definitely with you. Uh talk to somebody face to face in a small room, and that's gonna be a little bit better for you. You'll probably get just as good, if not better, a deal on getting insurance. Hey, uh, check out the website, the Carolinacontractor.com, and you can get uh more information about the show or if you got any questions, comments. And Donnie, what was the show's uh keyword today?
SPEAKER_00:Uh state fair food. Key word. Oh, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon. He's the host of the show, and he didn't even know the key word. He went with a key phrase.
SPEAKER_01:We covered a lot between that and now. Yeah, we did, and we're we're burning neurons off, and our brains don't fire quite as quick. But uh, I do appreciate everybody tuning in and again hit that website, deepcarolinacontractor.com, and we hope uh you guys will check us out next week. Thanks for the support, everybody. Love you guys.