Who's actually across from you at the kitchen table
Sales conversation recordings enable us to understand the person across the kitchen table the way a survey can't based on what they actually do and say. In this chapter of the In-Home Insider report, we analyze how homeowner buying traits differ across regions, what conversation signals truly reflect buying intent, and what product mentions show up most often.
The West has the most distinctive homeowner. They are 1.38x more likely to be Visual Selectors and least likely to be Financing Dependent (0.81x).
A homeowner asking for a lower price isn't more likely to buy: it only reflects a +0.5% close rate lift.
Accessibility is the strongest demand signal: appointments with accessibility as a factor close between 7-12.2% higher.
Homeowners across regions buy differently
Every homeowner in our dataset gets read on three independent dimensions: how they decide, how they think about paying, and what prior experience with home improvement they bring into the room.
- SOUTH
Deliberative reviewer, financing dependent, negative contractor experience
- MIDWEST
Expert-guided buyer, insurance funded, holds competing offers
- NORTHEAST
Deliberative reviewer, budget anchored, repeat company customer
- WEST
Visual selector, value flexible, first-time contractor
Each regional persona’s traits are based on which traits show up more than the national average, not that region's single most common type.
The West is the region with the most distinct profile. West homeowners are 1.38x more likely to be Visual Selectors and 1.15x more likely to be Value Flexible than the national rate, and least likely to be Financing Dependent (0.81x).
Comparing how common buying traits are with how well they close
Some interesting patterns:
Nationally and in every region, Comparison Shopper is actually the most common decision style (27-31%), and they tend to close at a lower rate
A detail-driven evaluator looks like a tough sell on paper but actually closes higher than most other styles.
A homeowner with a negative prior contractor experience is the second-highest-closing group in the prior-experience dimension, meaning getting burned once doesn't stop someone from buying again.
Giving managers more insights
“These graphs are super valuable, as a manager, this could tells me what to train my team for. For example, looking at the "comparison shopper" as a decision-making trait. It's the most common buying trait with the lowest close rate. ”
On the importance of discovery
“Agree. Similarly, if I'm looking at the "prior experience" tab, seeing how common it is for a homeowner to have prior project experience tells me discovery is super important to train for. Reps need to understand what homeowners have done in the past. ”
A homeowner asking for a lower price doesn’t actually reflect their buying intent
We looked at what topics homeowners bring up first in conversations, and how it correlates to whether or not they actually end up buying.
"Lower the total price" comes up in nearly half of all appointments and predicts almost nothing about intention to purchase (only +0.5 points in close rate). But reps behave as though the opposite is true by offering concessions unprompted 44% of the time.
"Wants to make an informed decision" comes up in 76% of all appointments, more than any other topic, and predicts negatively against closing (−20.4 points in close rate).
Here’s how the highest buying signal vs the lowest buying signal differ, in homeowners’ own words:
- The highest signal is about the mechanics of paying: "put like 10 grand down," "the most would be $170 a month," "if I have to finance something."
- The lowest signal is about needing more information or time before committing: "can you send me an email, estimate and how much," "how long is this estimate good for."
Accessibility is the strongest demand signal among homebuyers
The single most-mentioned product in most trades is a durability or repair feature: fixed vinyl replacement windows in Windows & Doors, roof ice-water shield in Roofing, solid-steel helical piers in Basements & Foundation.
Kitchen & Bath breaks that pattern. Its most-mentioned products are fixed grab bars and walk-in shower conversions. Homeowners in this trade are already bringing up accessibility more than anything else, unprompted.
That shows up in close rate too. Appointments with a high accessibility- or health-related factor present close at 33.1% against a 25.6% base rate.
NAHB's Remodeling Market Index found that 73% of remodelers report aging-in-place requests have increased over the past five years, and AARP puts the share of adults 50+ who want to stay in their current home at 75%.
What's been missing is conversion evidence, proof that these appointments don't just happen more often, they close meaningfully higher.
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About this data
This report is based on 53,389 in-home sales consultations, recorded and analyzed between April and August 2026.
Every close rate here reflects Siro's own judgment of whether a conversation advanced toward a sale, not a signed contract or revenue figure.
Our outcome labels carry a small error rate that skews toward under-counting wins, so treat a two-point difference between two groups as noise and a twenty-point difference as real.
National and regional benchmarks are based on our full population of recordings (26.9% close rate). Every other figure in this report, including all trade and conversation-level data, comes from a geographically balanced sample of 53,389 calls, built so no single region dominates the results.