This year, Dave Spetrino has noticed some surprises in his area of the building industry.

“What’s been interesting is the demographics have really changed for the custom homes in our area, at least from what we’ve seen,” Spetrino, president and CEO of Plantation Building Corp., said as part of a panel discussion Thursday morning. “We’re seeing families who are building custom homes" rather than solely retirees.

Spetrino’s company builds higher-end homes, and has done so in 22 communities in 2015.

“Our average size of our houses right now is about 3,400 heated square feet. We’re also seeing about a third of our clients do three cars or more garages. We’re also seeing a third do swimming pools," he said.

That wasn’t the norm even in 2004 or 2005, he said.

“Seeing families come in has been ... a different mix from what we had,” Spetrino said.

He was one of seven panelists speaking Thursday morning during a Builder Breakfast, an event presented by the Cape Fear New Home Sales & Marketing Council and the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association.

Builders said that despite some steady growth in building homes, especially in Brunswick County and the Pender County community of Hampstead, land prices still remain a concern, even above other challenges the industry faces.

“There’s still land that was bought at those fire sales [as a result of bankruptcies and foreclosures during the downturn] that is being developed and built ... but that’s completely changed, and we’re going to see prices go up due to that, primarily, and then material and labor costs are also going up and have some impact on it. But the biggest thing you’ll see in the way of price increases is due to land,” said Jeff Hilton, of Southern Homebuilders Inc.

Randy Johnson, market manager of Builders FirstSource in Wilmington, said government regulations don’t help, sometimes adding costs for builders, using the example of a Leland parking requirement that can take up some of that valuable land.

Before the panel discussion began, Tyler Newman, senior government affairs director for Business Alliance for a Sound Economy, drew the participants' attention to current efforts by local government officials to come up with updated Comprehensive Plans that will guide development in the future.

"The city of Wilmington’s plan assumes that growth is coming and tries to deal with how we’re going to accommodate it. The county’s plan is different in that there were folks that were involved in that process that were more interested in preserving some of the land that we have left. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; I just don’t know that that’s a realistic thing ..." Newman told the crowd of about 110 businessmen and women who attended Thursday's event. "Our contention is that those plans, and the development ordinances that come out of those plans within the next 18 months, need to be married up to one another."

Land, in certain cases, and where it's located, Spetrino said, has been the most important consideration for a few of his clients.

"The buyer was willing to pay for the land, and they didn’t want the house that was on top of it, but really that decision point for them was, 'This is where I want to be,'" Spetrino said during the panel discussion, which was held at Bluewater Waterfront Grill in Wrightsville Beach. "We tore down three homes all about within a half a mile of where we’re sitting."

Despite the land challenges, the housing market has been on the upswing, with new home sales continuing to increase each month over the same periods last year.

PJ Kelly, division manager at Logan Homes, said baby boomers relocating from the Northeast remain the bulk of the buyers for many of his company’s homes, especially in master planned communities in Brunswick County.