Overview

Despite the growth of huge national home builders and industry consolidation that accompanied it, Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better shows that most builders did not improve their operational performance during the boom. As a result, the sector had a long way to fall as the economy collapsed about them. Given the importance of housing to the US economy, the book’s lessons are critical to those in homebuilding as well as to policy makers, scholars, and the public.

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9780739172896

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In these challenging times, in order to be successful, a home builder needs to excel at land assembly, marketing, on-site operations and customer satisfaction. The Harvard home builder study lays out very clearly what national builders have done well, and where they could benefit from improvements. This book provides a roadmap to improve competitiveness in today's demanding economic environment while increasing productivity as the market recovers. -- Fulton, Dan This book is filled with descriptive institutional detail and analytical insight. It looks at the industry from a range of perspectives, and it is ultimately positive in its outlook. It is hard to find this kind of balance today. -- Case, Karl E. The implosion in home building is a wakeup call to modernize this important industry. The authors make a persuasive case that home builders have much to learn from other industries that have successfully balanced innovation and scale leading to greater efficiencies. -- Retsinas, Nicolas P. Scale offers significant opportunities in the homebuilding business. However, as in any business, execution is the key. Bigger Isn't Necessarily Better provides a thorough analysis of where home builders have been able to leverage their competitive advantages, where they have not, and therefore how they can become more efficient as market conditions dictate. This is a landmark study of the industry on an important topic. -- Belsky, Eric S.

Author Information

Frederick Abernathy is Gordon McKay Research Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Abbott and James Lawrence Research Professor of Engineering in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Kermit Baker is senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Kent W. Colton is president of The Colton Housing Group and senior fellow at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. David Weil is professor of economics and Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Boston University School of Management.

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