What Could Make Homes Sell? Gadgets!

Walking the floor of the National Association of Home Builders convention, it’s hard to comprehend recent news reports that as many as 20,000 builders have closed up shop in the last two years.

Sure, the crowds are thinner, and the association itself projects attendance will be down slightly this year, but the show remains almost unfathomably huge, with some 90,000 in attendance. It covers more than 850,000 square feet of exhibit space in the Las Vegas Convention Center – that’s more than 18 football fields covered with men in crew cuts and sport shirts (garnished at times with a gaggle of attractive women, invariably clad in fluorescent hardhats and toolbelts) hawking everything from storm windows to swimming pool accessories.

It turns out, an association spokeswoman tells me, that those 20,000 builders didn’t entirely go out of business – they just changed the focus of their business. With actual building out of fashion for the foreseeable future, many have turned to remodeling or fix-it jobs to pay the bills. Hence, they are here – and the suppliers who make up most of the exhibitors are desperate to sell them stuff.

The marketing onslaught can be over the top at times – “Impressing the World With Decorative Asphalt,” read one banner – but some products stand out from the pack. Here are three that caught my eye: