The homebuilder software shakeout is here. Most builders aren't ready.

Two conversations I've had this year tell the same story from opposite directions.

The first is with a small homebuilder in Ohio. He runs his entire operation on MarkSystems, ECI's flagship ERP for residential builders. It works. It's been around for years. His team knows it. But it doesn't match how he actually runs his company. His estimating process, his scheduling logic, his purchasing workflows... they're all specific to how he built the business over the last couple of decades. MarkSystems has a way it thinks homebuilders should work. His company has a different way. So he bends. His team fills the gaps with spreadsheets and manual steps, the same way every builder does when the software doesn't quite fit.

He's not being forced off the platform. He's choosing to leave. Because at some point, paying $700/user/month to rent a system that covers 70% of what you need and creates friction on the other 30% stops making sense.

The second conversation is with a builder coming off BuilderMT, another ECI product that was acquired from MiTek in 2024. BuilderMT has been used by over 1,000 homebuilders and upwards of 10,000 building professionals as a desktop workflow tool. After the acquisition, ECI folded it into the same portfolio as MarkSystems. And anyone who's been through an acquisition in this industry knows the pattern. Support thins out, updates slow down, and eventually you're running a tool that's no longer getting investment.

This builder isn't choosing to leave. He's being pushed.

Two different situations. Same question: what comes next?

The default answer, and what it actually costs

Google "BuilderMT alternative" or "MarkSystems alternative" and you'll get a wall of SaaS comparison charts. Procore, Buildertrend, CoConstruct, BuilderPad. Every result is some variation of the same pitch: switch to us.

Here's what those comparison charts leave out.

Every one of those platforms was built for a generic version of a homebuilding company. Your estimating process is specific to how you price, how you manage allowances, how you handle your subs. Your scheduling logic reflects the way your superintendent actually runs the field. Your sales workflow matches how your buyers move through the process in your market, not a national template.

When you migrate to an off-the-shelf platform, you bend your workflows to match the tool. Some things fit. A lot don't. Your team half-uses the new system and keeps the real work in spreadsheets and text threads. And you're paying hundreds per user per month for the privilege.

I know what this cycle looks like from the inside. I spent 14 years at Pulte, and during that time I watched the company do the thing every builder wishes they could do... they built their own platform. It was a custom portal for construction trades covering invoicing, schedules, options, everything. A portal for every trade partner, every superintendent, every division. I sat on the project advisory board for two and a half years while we were building it, working alongside other divisions across the country to figure out what everyone actually needed. Once it rolled out, I was the admin who trained every single construction trade partner on how to use it. One-on-one, online, walking them through each workflow. Land development too.

That experience taught me something that's shaped everything I've built since. When the software matches how the team actually works, people use it. When it doesn't, they find workarounds. And no amount of training fixes a tool that was designed for someone else's operation.

The option nobody talks about

The Ohio builder chose a different path. Instead of migrating to the next vendor's platform, we're building his system from scratch. Custom software shaped around the way his company actually runs.

His purchasing workflow. His scheduling logic. His estimating process. His sales pipeline, the way his team actually uses it. Everything built around the specific way this company operates.

And here's the part that changes the math entirely: when you build your own, you own it.

He's not paying per-user monthly fees to rent someone else's system. He owns the code. He owns the data structure. He owns the IP. And we're building it with something specific in mind... if the system works as well as we think it will, other builders are going to want it too. Because when a builder solves the same problems every builder has, and does it in a way that actually fits how homebuilding works, that's an asset. That's something with real value beyond the walls of one company.

Every homebuilder understands the difference between owning and renting. You build homes. You know what equity means. Custom software is the same concept applied to your operations.

Where AI actually fits in homebuilding

AI for homebuilders is about capturing the knowledge that lives inside your best people and making it available to everyone in your company, all the time. That's really the whole job of an AI consultant for construction — not a one-day seminar, but a rollout that fits how your team already works.

Your best estimator has decades of pricing history in his head. He knows which subs actually show up, which ones pad their bids, which materials have been volatile this quarter. When he leaves, that knowledge walks out the door. AI can capture those patterns, learn from your historical data, and give your next estimator a running start instead of a blank spreadsheet.

Your project manager knows why a certain spec changed three years ago and which inspector cares about which details. That's institutional knowledge that a generic SaaS platform will never hold because it was never designed to. Custom software built around your operation can.

Here's where I see AI making a real difference for homebuilders right now.

Operations. Drafting RFIs, summarizing submittals, generating change order documentation, writing vendor communications. The work that eats hours every week. When you feed AI your actual project data, your actual templates, your actual vendor history, the output is specific to your company. When you type "write a follow-up email" into ChatGPT with zero context, you get something written for someone else's business. The difference is always the input.

Estimating and purchasing. AI can analyze your historical bid data, flag cost variances against previous jobs, and generate preliminary estimates based on your actual numbers. It gives your estimator a better starting point and catches things they might miss when they're moving fast.

Knowledge capture. Every email your team sends, every RFI response, every change order justification, every vendor negotiation... that's data. Most of it sits in inboxes and spreadsheets and disappears when someone leaves. AI systems built around your operation can capture, organize, and surface that knowledge so it compounds over time instead of vanishing.

The real question for homebuilders right now

Whether you're choosing to leave a platform that doesn't fit or being pushed off one that's losing support, the question is the same. Do you migrate to the next vendor's system and start renting again, or do you use this moment to build something you own?

The Ohio builder chose the second option. His team is already using pieces of the new system. The scheduling module matches exactly how his superintendent runs the field. The estimating tools reflect his actual pricing methodology. And when he finally turns off the old system, his company won't skip a beat.

The builders who figure this out early will have something that compounds. Systems that match their operations. Data that AI can actually learn from. And an asset they own, one that might be worth something to other builders down the road.

I've been on both sides of this. I helped build the custom platform for one of the largest homebuilders in the country, and I trained every trade partner who used it. Now I build the same thing for smaller operators who deserve software that fits just as well. The only difference is they don't need a two-and-a-half-year advisory board and a corporate IT department to get it.

If you're a homebuilder deciding what comes next — whether you're leaving a platform that doesn't fit or being pushed off one that's losing support — that's exactly the problem I solve. We build custom operating systems around the way your company actually runs. Book a free 30-minute audit.

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Kelly Stephens is the founder and CEO of EyeOn Automations, a custom software and AI company for construction and real estate operators. She spent 14 years at PulteGroup in construction operations and land development before building software for the industry. Based in Southern California.