By Nicholas G. Miller

Home builders are looking everywhere for ways to slash costs. They are finding them in cabinets, faucets and even the garage door remote.

Builders are opting for cheaper materials and rejiggering designs with cost savings top of mind. Particle board cabinets are in. Hardwood is out. Countertops are becoming thinner. Walls now feature smaller and fewer windows. An automatic garage opener is sometimes a frivolous luxury.

The cumulative effect is changing the appearance of newly constructed American homes. "It kind of looks incomplete," said Erika Phelan, a real-estate agent at Buyers Broker of Florida.

She said the latest single-family homes lack the basics, such as cabinets with crown molding, that used to be standard.

The cost-cutting is part of an effort to offer more affordable homes when buyers are concerned about high prices, elevated mortgage rates and an uncertain economy. The largest builders, such as D.R. Horton and Lennar, are offering expensive mortgage rate buydowns to close sales.

But with new homes selling for more than $400,000, mortgage relief isn't always enough to unload builders' excess inventory. Meanwhile, higher labor costs and materials prices are also cutting into margins. So builders are trying to find ways to protect their profits while passing on savings to home purchasers.

Builders say this makes homeownership more attainable, especially for cash-strapped first-time buyers. The lower-cost materials, they say, are still solid and durable.

"The goal is to deliver homes that feel open and functional without carrying avoidable cost," said KB Home Chief Executive Rob McGibney.

Still, the approach has left first-time buyers wrestling with how much to give up in exchange for a good deal.

Warren Bryan last fall bought a no-frills D.R. Horton-built house in Tallahassee, Fla. Unable to sell the house for months, the builder cut the price by $14,000 and offered Bryan a 3.99% mortgage rate.

But the home had vinyl flooring and a skimpier-than-typical three-fourths of an inch granite countertop. Horton also didn't put up gutters or install a towel rack on the bathroom wall, or screw in a doorknob that promptly fell off after Bryan moved in.

"I would have loved for them to have put a rack on the wall for us to hang towels," Bryan said. But "you get your foot in the door and then you just manage it."

A spokeswoman for D.R. Horton said: "As affordability has become increasingly important to many buyers, we have expanded the availability of smaller floor plans in some communities and, where appropriate, simplified selections or used alternative products and materials."

The company fixed Bryan's doorknob the same day, she said.

Ana Wilkinson wouldn't even consider new construction after what she has seen. Many new homes now "feel very cookie-cutter and very much [like] they're just slamming them together as quickly as possible," she said. "It's just kind of that feeling that we get [that] things aren't built as well as they used to be."

Instead, she is buying her first home in Durham, N.C., an 18-year-old house with hardwood floors and expansive windows.

A John Burns Research & Consulting survey published last year found that residential architects were implementing less complicated roof lines and synthetic instead of natural materials.

Builders also are installing cheaper doors and opting for low-end appliances, analysts say.

"Once a builder finds a way to be more cost effective, other builders follow suit," said Ahmad Homidi, a real-estate agent based in Austin, Texas.

In Florida, where homes have traditionally been built of stucco, builders are increasingly opting for siding, which is less expensive to install, said John Madson, chief sales officer at siding company James Hardie.

Builders find it even easier to trade down in places that home buyers are unlikely to spot, according to Bill Christensen, CEO of door and window manufacturer Jeld-Wen.

For example, they are giving up sound protection by hanging lower-tier doors with hollow cores. "It's effectively reducing cost where the customer doesn't see," Christensen said.

Layouts are also changing. Home builder Taylor Morrison has said it is now designing homes with fewer hallways to reduce material needs.

Many builders are shrinking their entire footprints. McGibney said 65% of KB Home's communities now include homes with less than 1,600 square feet. The median square footage of new single-family homes was 2,153 in 2025, down from 2,466 in 2015.

Meanwhile, John Burns expects that the average number of windows in a home will fall to 18 in 2027, compared with 21 in 2015.

Builders are also slashing the number of different layouts, paint colors, window shapes and finishes to improve efficiency. James Hardie, which has more than 700 colors of siding, now offers home builders a set of eight colors in a collection marketed for cost-cutting.

"There is some attempt to design homes almost like mass-produced products," said Lou Rossi, vice president of strategic advisory services at Dodge Construction Network.

Write to Nicholas G. Miller at nicholas.miller@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 13, 2026 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)

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