By BUILDER Magazine Staff. The 2001 Annual Consumer Practices survey garnered a respectable 8,200 responses -- but when the NAHB Research Center put its annual consumer survey online to gather the data for its 2002 survey, it collected more than 40,000 responses.
Designed to help the home building industry understand consumer trends, the survey covers a large variety of building materials and fixtures and includes such information as who selected the materials, as well as who purchased and who installed them.
NAHB Research Center market researchers designed its consumer practices survey and its counterpart, the Annual Builder Practices survey, to be flexible enough to meet the various and unique interests of those who need to know what consumers want.
NAHB Research Center president Michael Luzier says, "The uniqueness of the NAHB Research Center, including its accredited in-house laboratory, access to the over 200,000 NAHB members, nearby National Research Home Park, and staff of highly qualified research professionals ... allow the Center to identify and interpret new trends effectively and to understand the industry's complexities."
With the vast amount of data collected, the Research Center can tailor-make studies to suit a variety of interests from trend assayers to product manufacturers. This year's survey, for example, revealed that vinyl windows now account for more than half the windows chosen by those who answered the survey. To learn more, click here.
