Giving Compass' Take:

• Innovation in homebuilding is necessary to address key challenges, but there are many barriers in the way of creating solutions.

• How can the private sector help spur innovation and growth in homebuilding?

• Here are questions that will guide the future of homebuilding innovation.

When people think of innovative industries, homebuilding might not be the first industry to come to mind. But even though housing construction can be slower to change than big tech or retail companies, builders and inventors are finding new ways to improve materials, technologies, and processes.

“This is an industry that is durable and resilient,” said Carlos Martín, a senior fellow in the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center. “It continues to try to innovate itself.”

These innovations aren’t contained to the private sector. The federal government, especially the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), has a long history of investing in a more innovative and productive homebuilding industry.

HUD asked the Urban Institute and the Virginia Tech Center for Housing Research to update a 2003 RAND Corporation report, Building Better Homes: Government Strategies for Promoting Innovation in Housing, which explored the contributors and barriers to housing innovation. The new report, released last week, offers insights into what a housing innovation program could do, how it could accomplish its goals, and how to measure success.

Read the full article about innovation in homebuilding by Emily Peiffer at Urban Institute.