Like it or not, for buyers in today’s newly built home market – especially the young, price- and interest rate-sensitive ones – the homebuilder is the homebuilder the homebuilder.
Product, price, and location may reveal little differences, and provide a limited toolbox of incentives – i.e. incentives. Without those nuances, in the mind of the buyer, new homes often appear as a sea of sameness.
Getting out is hard. Because Houses in Beazercommitment and investment in the spotlight shows better practice than the standard for sustainability and energy efficiency. The facilitator here bends the cost curve of operating costs for new homeowners in the form of their monthly utility costs, and a healthy, affordable home to start.
In interview no Builder’s DayMegan Cordes, Beazer Homes Director of Sustainability and Building Science, discussed how this commitment is a key benefit that goes beyond a slogan. As Cordes explained, Beazer’s focus on sustainable building practices provides what they believe is a better home, improving affordability with improved performance and lower energy bills.
The builder achieved its goal last year of becoming the first national homebuilder to deliver 100% of its new homes to meet or exceed Department of EnergyZero Energy Ready Home Ratings. Now, Beazer Homes is building on this success by developing solar communities in a variety of markets.
A deep dive into Beazer Homes’ sustainability innovation
Beazer Homes’ focus on sustainability and energy efficiency traces back more than a decade. By 2020, the builder has committed to bringing all of its homes to meet Zero Energy Ready Home standards.
The Trump administration replaced the Zero Energy Ready Home standards with the Efficient New Homes program by October 2025, a change Cordes said didn’t have a big impact on Beazer’s strategy as they were still in the process at the time.
Homes, says Cordes, go beyond those standards and deliver a healthy indoor environment through strong construction and controlled, air-filtering. The architect has strict guidelines for air sealing, reducing HVAC loads, improving humidity control and creating quiet, peaceful living spaces. Each house also includes a power-balanced ventilator, providing double-filtered indoor air quality.
The Beazer team spent several years developing a process to build its energy-efficient homes, and during that time, was able to cut the direct costs of the construction cycle by nearly half, Cordes said. There have been a number of changes made by the team to successfully launch those apps.
For example, Beazer’s operations, design and engineering teams began building strong, well-insulated homes with energy recovery ventilators that allow for smaller, better-designed HVAC systems – cutting overall tones and lowering costs. The builder also negotiates prices with trade partners when the construction process is more efficient, which is a major factor in cost reduction.
“When we did this and worked through our operations and built muscle memory between the divisions and each market, we were able to really figure out how to do this in the most logical way for each of those different markets, which brought the cost down completely,” Cordes said.
Beazer’s divisions have worked out these kinks and discovered what works best when the market does best. Cordes noted this as a major benefit.
“Now, as things move slowly and become stronger, we’re in a place where we’ve figured it out, and we can take our time to reduce costs and figure out what’s next in a way that I don’t think others have the opportunity to do,” he said.
Why solar communities make strategic sense
Now that Beazer Homes has reached its goal of meeting Zero Energy Ready Home standards, it is expanding its pipeline of smartly-aligned solar communities, both as a customer value proposition and as an efficient and accessible workflow. Because their homes use very little energy, they don’t need large solar systems to cover their total needs.
“That’s the benefit of our strategy. We’ve reduced energy consumption, and now we’re adding the right size solar power system on top of that to offset the remaining energy consumption,” Cordes explained.
Beazer launched solar communities in late 2023 and is already building them in Las Vegas, Georgia and Phoenix. The company will soon bring a large solar community to South Carolina, expanding the product’s footprint. The Greenhouse, a 591-unit community that broke ground in Marietta, Georgia, in late 2024, is the largest solar community in Georgia.
On an earnings call in January, President and CEO Allan Merrill noted that communities with solar products have higher ratings than Beazer’s other communities, though he declined to specify the magnitude of the difference.
Management plans to capitalize on this higher margin by growing solar homes to about 20% of Beazer’s product mix by the end of 2026.
Last year, every part of Beazer Homes made a solar pilot to prepare to go live with solar cutting. These pilots include testing how solar will work best in each market, as well as education for each division about the solar strategy. According to Cordes, each division has the flexibility to put together the most efficient solar strategy in its market.
“Our difference is not just that we flip a switch and do something different at home. It’s the way we think about the whole system,” said Cordes.
Some of the solar houses come standard with the house. Some include a lease option, while others include a lease with an option to purchase.
“Different markets have done different things, some haven’t included it at all in standard homes, they’ve just given it an opportunity for homebuyers to choose to go solar or solar. That’s given us a lot of information about what works and what doesn’t.”
It’s the difference that pays dividends
Beazer Homes sees an emphasis on sustainability as a way to lower costs for consumers. A typical builder’s home uses 50% less energy on average than a typical new home, and a solar home offers even more long-term cost savings.
Consumers are increasingly realizing the benefits of having a more efficient home. Materials are more durable, air quality is better, it is better for the environment and most importantly, utility bills are lower.
“We build a better home. It’s better quality, longer lasting, more efficient and less expensive to operate. All of these things benefit our customers. A lot of times, people will say, ‘Well, isn’t that expensive?’ And, yes, we spend a little more to do this, but when you look at the total cost of ownership, we are low. “The extra money you pay for a house like this is more than what you get from the money you spend,” said Cordes.
As home ownership reaches beyond the reach of many Americans, Cordes sees innovations that reduce long-term ownership costs as important to the housing industry. These innovations help with marketing efforts and winning over consumers, but that’s not where the benefits end.
“I don’t think it’s just important from a marketing point of view. I think it’s important in the way our industry creates a perception. I think there’s a real opportunity here to show that this is the best way to build,” he said. “I think this is something that, going forward, is going to be huge in the industry.”
