New Construction Real Estate Trends for 2027: Modular Homes, AI and Buyer Transparency

Carla Goddard (00:00)
And that’s not the typical, this is how you post on Facebook or you need to have a YouTube channel. We’re actually deep diving into artificial intelligence and specifically how does an agent get listed as a source on LLMs? So that’s really where our focus is at the moment. Really deep diving, and it’s all behind the scenes because we want people to remember AI is a tool. The human relationship between buyer and agent will never go away.

Freddie Steen (02:06)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the *Investor Fuel Podcast* brought to you by Real Estate Pros. I’m your host, Freddie, and today I’m joined by someone that I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Carla Goddard, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate space in a very particular niche by building a portal to sell floor plans, to give people the truth.

Vicinity is her company, and it’s the ecosystem that she built with Johnny, where agent specialists and verified builders work together to give you the inside track data you need to build with total confidence. Carla, I am so happy to have you here. And I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching building an agentic platform that was built by agents, for agents, and scaling in multiple markets at the same time. So let’s dive in. So first off, for people who may not be familiar, Carla, with your world, give us the short version. What’s your main focus these days, and what markets are you operating in?

Carla Goddard (03:20)
Our main focus is becoming the standard for buyers to be able to purchase a new construction home. And currently we’re in six different markets. We have not fully launched yet, so I believe it’s six currently, but it will be nationwide in the contiguous states.

Freddie Steen (03:48)
Love it. What caught my attention about you, Carla, was the way that you’ve been able to leverage an entire history from the construction side. I mean, you literally were in there with the—with the nails and the hammers and the tarps and the tar. And then you leverage that to build a company now that’s launching in just a few weeks through multiple markets. And you’re going to do that while still keeping your margin strong. It’s not easy, especially in this climate. What’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Carla Goddard (04:23)
Think the key is making sure that you understand you don’t have to have all the answers. You have to build a really strong team around you. And that includes our agent partners who have been our founding members who have said, this would be great. I don’t like this aspect. Helping us really build the platform and the portals and what they look like. So we have, while we’re a very lean company, I feel like we have a very large development team because we include those agents as part of our development team.

Freddie Steen (05:51)
I love it. Carla, one of the things that we talked about that was before the pod was some trends that you’re seeing in the market, particularly around how businesses are marrying themselves to builders now. Can you talk about that?

Carla Goddard (06:10)
So in the news recently, Berkshire Hathaway purchased Taylor Morrison. Now, a lot of people don’t understand is that Berkshire Hathaway already owns Clayton Properties. So one of the things that people think of when they’re thinking new construction, they’re thinking just inside the box of these communities that the houses all look similar.

Vicinity works with geodomes, barndominiums, modular, container, luxury. So the trend is that people are looking for a specific lifestyle. And *Inman News*, I can’t remember what month, but sometime this this spring, actually came out and talked about how the lifestyle has becoming the most important piece to a buyer. It’s no longer a geographical market, it’s really a hyperlocal market based on the nuances of the community. So when you get a company like Berkshire who’s now going to be partnering with Taylor Morrison, and Berkshire sees the trends and Taylor Morrison sees a different kind of trends. Transform the business from design to what’s affordable. So, I mean, we see a lot of of people now that are that are reaching out to us about kind of modular homes. Now, that’s Clayton Properties. A lot of people don’t think about that being a new construction. It’s still a new home.

Freddie Steen (07:59)
Carla, you have a deep dive of knowledge, and I love nerding out with our real estate pros that are listening. So I must ask, based on that data that you have, where do you glean the trend to run going into 2027 with folks that may be listening right now? What should they be focused on?

Carla Goddard (08:19)
I think they should be focused on outside-the-box new construction. I don’t think that the typical communities—there’s a lot of places that they just don’t have land anymore. And so we’re seeing trends in, like, 3D building. I know of a company in California that is creating hempcrete that is supposed to be fire retardant. Great product for out there for the new construction homes that are being built. And I think that because of the affordability factor, because of where the mortgage rates are right now, and it doesn’t look like they’re gonna go down anytime soon, people are really looking for, how can I still have that American dream? And I think even builders, we have one builder locally that he’s doing, you know, 3,000-square-foot homes, and he’s also doing tiny homes. And not tiny homes on wheels, tiny homes on a slab. Because it’s better to pay yourself than it is to pay a landlord. So I think that a lot of people need to watch those kinds of trends of being outside the box, which is what Vicinity is trying to do. We’re trying to bring all of those various types of builders together with the buyers and the agents. We, in fact, are working with an overseas company right now to bring in an absolutely blow-your-mind modular home. But it’s not modular like you think of modular, it’s modular like the panels are pre-wired and pre—everything’s done inside.

And then when it comes to your site, it takes about six days to build.

Freddie Steen (10:50)
Wow, Carla. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty on Vicinity. Can you tell our real estate pro audience the three areas that you all solve for? What was the problem you saw on the market that has you launching Vicinity?

Carla Goddard (11:06)
So the number one is that we saw all of the big portals. Everybody is doing floor plans, and buyers don’t necessarily want floor plans. They want lifestyle. But the other half of that is they also want to know how much it’s actually gonna cost. Not the house. What’s it gonna cost them every month? Excuse me. So that’s one of the pillars of our company, is lifestyle with transparency so that they—they know what the monthly cost is going to be.

The second is, the second pillar probably just as strong or equal to the first pillar is the agent specialist. A lot of buyers of new constructions don’t understand, what is an agent going to do? And depending on the type of new construction that they’re purchasing, there’s a lot of things. I know personally I have negotiated all the closing costs incentives to still be given to my buyer without using the inside lender, for example. And usually those incentives are, you are tied to the preferred lender. So there’s lots of things with the agent.

So Vicinity trains the agents. We don’t just let them sign up. They become Vicinity-certified so that we can train them how to do from—from dirt to keys, to be that advocate for the buyers. And then the third, I—I guess pillar, is really being able to have develop the relationships with those builders. So we work with some Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices agents. Berkshire Hathaway has a number of different real estate companies, but specifically with HomeServices agents. And being able to really deep dive with them on training on how to have that relationship with the builder so that they—they know how to market, they know how to find the buyers.

So, yeah, so that we can become the normal ecosystem versus the big guys.

Freddie Steen (13:33)
Love it. I love it. I mean, what caught my attention about you as CEO of Vicinity was the way that you’re driving the company’s mission to replace the industry’s black box with clear data, with trusted advocacy, and, as you say, a modern new construction experience. And that’s not easy, especially in this kind climate, and you’ve still been able to keep margins strong. What’s been not just the key to running your entire machine smoothly, but how have you maintained your vision as a leader in that environment?

Carla Goddard (14:51)
It’s all about, again, going back to relationships. It’s all about bringing in the people on our—specifically on our core team that have the same vision, that are excited and passionate about what we’re doing. But it’s—and then taking it and widening that circle to working with agents as founding members to get them excited and passionate about it.

And there is no better recommendation or referral in the world than a happy customer referring. I don’t care what business it is. And that’s currently—that’s the way a lot of our business has grown, is literally, my God, I just signed a two-million-dollar custom luxury home. You’ve got to get on this platform. And just—and being able to really work with them and them having the trust in us to know we’re not charging referral fees. We’re not charging you a per-buyer lead price. We really, really want you to succeed in new construction. So our core team, as it expands, will hold on to that vision that this is truly about a platform built for agents by agents.

That’s, you know, that’s one of our driving forces. This is all about agents.

Freddie Steen (16:18)
Now, every operator I know, Carla, has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal that went sideways or a time they had to pivot fast. Do you mind sharing one of those moments for us?

Carla Goddard (16:30)
We originally had looked at partnering with another company in order to create our platform. And it became evident really fast, like within five, six weeks of negotiations, that we had to pivot. We had to figure out how we—me, who has nothing and no idea about developing tech stack platforms, partnering with the right people to create what I could see in my head and doing it in a manner that keeps with my integrity and my vision. I mean, that was our biggest pivot. We’ve had some smaller pivots along the way in this beta of, you know, Carla, I love your platform, but I really hate the way the build-on-your-lot pages look. They don’t have the same feel as the rest of it. And they called us out on it. And so we’ve—we are like, absolutely. What we’d like you to do is be on our focus team to revamp that entire portion of our platform. And they’re so excited because they feel like they have ownership of it because they helped us rewrite it. So a lot of the—the smaller pivots have all come from agents.

Freddie Steen (18:00)
Type of rich data that you’re getting from agents, the ability for you to take that as a founder and not have founder syndrome and pivot, that’s the kind of stuff that people don’t talk about enough. And honestly, it’s what separates the folks that just dabble from the ones who stay in the game long term. Let me ask you this: what are you most focused on solving or scaling next? What’s the next real goal for Carla Goddard?

Carla Goddard (18:29)
So our next real goal is we want to beef up our marketing. I’m not talking about marketing Vicinity. Beef up our marketing training for our agents.

And that’s not the typical, this is how you post on Facebook or you need to have a YouTube channel. We’re actually deep diving into artificial intelligence and specifically how does an agent get listed as a source on LLMs? So that’s really where our focus is at the moment. Really deep diving, and—and it’s all behind the scenes because we want people to remember AI is a tool. The human relationship between buyer and agent will never go away.

So when we talk about AI, a lot of it is the fun stuff for the buyers on the platform.

You know, let me put this—this room on there and change all the furniture. That’s just one of the things they can do on our platform. But that’s our really big focus. And the second one is we are a startup, so raising some capital is probably gonna be our second focus.

Freddie Steen (19:46)
That’s big. I mean, especially when you’ve already got this Vicinity platform that’s built by agents for agents in place, and you’re now talking about expanding that offering, the next move can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. Now, Carla, I know a lot of people listening are either earlier in their journey or looking to level up like you. And I think they benefit from hearing this.

When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Carla Goddard (20:25)
Me personally or in what we teach our agents? Okay, for me personally is, I think the biggest thing is everybody’s ideas are massive and good. They may not be great for you, but if you shut the door on every opportunity, you’re never going to have any opportunities. So when I get a request from—

Freddie Steen (20:29)
Both.

Carla Goddard (20:52)
A company, look, we want to provide this service. I’m gonna sit and listen to them because their idea may not be right for us, but it might spark another idea. And now I just have developed a relationship with a peer in the same industry. And that—you never know when’s going to come into play. With our agents, teaching them to respect—respect time, respect process with their builder partners, and to treat their builder on-site sales reps as their partners, and really teaching them, I know you’re extremely busy. I was an active, productive real estate agent. I was an active, productive real estate team lead. Time is precious, and we want to spend as much as we can with our buyers or our sellers.

But if you don’t develop the relationships, take the time to do that, it’s gonna affect your long-term success. And so we spend a lot of time with our agents teaching them that relationship and how to build that.

Freddie Steen (22:01)
Yes, Carla, you can’t fake that. I mean, we talked before. Relationships are everything in this space. Would you agree?

Carla Goddard (22:09)
Absolutely.

Freddie Steen (22:11)
All right, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out and connect with Vicinity and connect with Carla and maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Carla Goddard (22:26)
[email protected] is the best email. And you can—as it says, we want you to try Vicinity. So it’s just tryvicinity.com. That will take you onto the platform. You can log in for a free account and get the back end to see what the portal and all that stuff looks like, and it’s absolutely free.

Just make sure to select the right user. So when you go to sign up, you could sign up as a buyer, you could sign up as a agent, builder, lender, all these different things. Make sure you select agent, or you’re gonna look at the portal behind the scenes in that dashboard and say, what the heck is this?

Freddie Steen (23:17)
Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, Carla, your story and your perspective. But most of all, I appreciate it because you’ve done it from the bricks. You put hammer to nail, and now you are growing this after being an agent into something that the industry has not seen and needs. An actual vicinity, an actual platform that is built by agents for agents, and we need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. So, Carla, thanks again for being here. Thank you.

Carla Goddard (23:53)
Thank you for having me.

Freddie Steen (23:54)
My pleasure. And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Carla Goddard, who are out there building real businesses just like you. We’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you, Carla.