Buildern Residential Construction Marketing Report 2026 — residential builder marketing spend is 1.8–3.2% of revenue

Claim: Buildern's 2026 Residential Construction Marketing Report puts residential builder marketing spend at 1.8%–3.2% of revenue.

Source: Buildern, Residential Construction Marketing Report 2026.

Confidence: Industry-consensus / Directional (vendor-produced, but consistent with NAHB's 0.8%-of-sale-price figure — see [[nahb-cost-of-constructing-2024-marketing-0-8pct]]).

For Candid — the load-bearing inference: A structurally low number that suggests most GCs have not invested enough to be "burned" in any deep sense. The aversion exists at the category level, before specific vendor experiences accumulate. This directly contradicts the dominant "agency-burned" narrative pushed by trade-press marketing blogs and reframes the problem for Candid: the obstacle is not bad prior vendors, it is pre-engagement category resistance. Used in the master brief's TL;DR.