If you are a builder or home buyer, the last few years have probably felt like a roller coaster. Mortgage rates jumped above 7 percent in 2023 according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey, which cooled sales and pushed a lot of buyers to the sidelines. At the same time, analysts like Redfin are looking ahead to 2026 and still see a market that is short on homes, especially more affordable ones. That combination of steady demand and payment pressure is exactly why the plans you choose today matter so much for the next couple of years.
Under the surface, the supply shortage is still very real. Freddie Mac has estimated that the United States is short by roughly 3 to 4 million homes compared with household formation [Freddie Mac, “The Housing Supply Shortage,” 2021]. Existing home sales in 2023 fell to their lowest level in about a decade, down sharply from the 2021 peak, largely because buyers struggled with prices and higher rates [National Association of Realtors, 2023 Existing Home Sales]. The need for housing did not disappear. It just collided with affordability limits. Looking ahead to 2026, most forecasts expect rates to ease from the recent highs but remain well above the ultra low levels of 2020 and 2021, which means affordability will stay front and center.
For builders and developers working on homes from roughly 400 to 2,500 square feet, this creates an opportunity. The homes that are likely to perform best into 2025 and 2026 are those that are intentionally efficient: smaller, smarter footprints that still feel good to live in. At W.L. Martin Home Designs, that is what we call Affordable by Design. Affordability does not come from stripping out everything buyers love. It starts at the drawing board, with plans that use every square foot carefully and keep structural complexity in check.
In practical terms, Affordable by Design plans tend to share a few traits that help both budgets and buyers, such as: efficient footprints that reduce wasted hallways and non functional space, repeatable layouts that make framing and mechanical work faster across multiple lots, and narrow lot or duplex options that let you create more attainable homes on higher priced or smaller parcels. When you stack those kinds of decisions across a phase or a small subdivision, the impact on your total project cost and your buyers’ monthly payments can be significant.
This is why now is a smart time to update your plan lineup instead of waiting for 2026 to arrive. If you are a builder, you can use this period to curate a small set of W.L. Martin plans that fit your land, your trades, and your price points, then carry those designs into multiple projects. If you are a buyer working with a builder, you can start with plans that were drawn with real budgets in mind, rather than trying to trim down a design that was never meant to be affordable. In both cases, locking in the right plans now puts you in a stronger position as the market stabilizes and more buyers re enter.
At W.L. Martin Home Designs, we are already helping builders across North America prepare for this next phase with plans that support realistic pricing without sacrificing livability. As Redfin and other analysts point toward a 2026 market that still needs a lot of attainable homes, the question is not whether demand will be there. It is whether you will have the right product ready when it shows up. If you want to build a collection of Affordable by Design homes for your next projects, this is the time to choose the plans that will carry you into the years ahead.