Posted on 01/17/2011 9:21:45 AM PST by Gena Bukin
Here's what Generation Y doesn't want: formal living rooms, soaker bathtubs, dependence on a car.
In other words, they don't want their parents' homes.
Much of this week's National Association of Home Builders conference has dwelled on the housing needs of an aging baby boomer population. But their children actually represent an even larger demographic. An estimated 80 million people comprise the category known as "Gen Y," youth born roughly between 1980 and the early 2000s. The boomers, meanwhile, boast 76 million.
Gen Y housing preferences are the subject of at least two panels at this week's convention. A key finding: They want to walk everywhere. Surveys show that 13% carpool to work, while 7% walk, said Melina Duggal, a principal with Orlando-based real estate adviser RCLCO. A whopping 88% want to be in an urban setting, but since cities themselves can be so expensive, places with shopping, dining and transit such as Bethesda and Arlington in the Washington suburbs will do just fine.
"One-third are willing to pay for the ability to walk," Ms. Duggal said. "They don't want to be in a cookie-cutter type of development. ...The suburbs will need to evolve to be attractive to Gen Y."
Outdoor space is important-but please, just a place to put the grill and have some friends over. Lawn-mowing not desired.
(Excerpt) Read more at realestate.yahoo.com ...
There's a number of Gen-Y suburbs in towns neighboring mine. They're also hideously overpriced, centrally-planned, HOA-ruled communities that don't take kindly to non-Gen-Yers. All of them look like brand-new mining towns, all painted in friendly earth tones and all built using mixed-material steel panel and clapboard wood construction.
In a decade or two, after they've been through a few winters and the owners can't afford the expensive, custom up-keep due to the mixed-material construction, I predict they're going to look like shanty towns.
Good point that I didn't consider. Yes, having kids changes everything. As several other posters stated, good (and safe) school districts will take a higher priority.
I thought living rooms and dining rooms were replaced by ‘great rooms’ years ago. The article must be talking about real, sizable homes that still have those formal rooms, not typical new family homes.
My family fits this trend in more than one way.
1. We sold a 4,000 square footer in CA that has since declined by 400K in value.
2. We want to walk everywhere and live in a 90% walkable location in CO.
3. My gen Y kids are the same. One lives in Union County New Jersey, car-less. Another would live in Europe if she could, car-less. The third joined the Navy, to be car-less.
These young people are between age 20 and 30. Many haven’t yet had children or married or settled down. Many don't have jobs and live with Mommy and Daddy. But hey, they'll make it easy for my grandkids to clean-up (well, except for one of them).
“Here’s what Generation Y doesn’t want: formal living rooms, soaker bathtubs, dependence on a car. “
GenY are jsut stupid little kids that refused to grow up/
True, but there are affordable suburban areas without the feral yutes, especially in Houston metro. I would also say that the “almost” makes a difference. There is enough of a difference to matter in the risk posed by what comes out of Anacostia vs what comes out of Prince George’s.
I am 35, and only recently have been able to even contemplate buying a home. i work for myself, small business, etc etc.
The last thing on my mind is some gaudy McMansion in a subdivision that idiot boomers overpaid for and now is taxed to the hilt.
No thanks.
Hmmm... I am about the only person I know that actually took where they could walk into consideration before moving. With the exception of bars, walking really isn’t a consideration with my GenY relatives. The GenY’s I am acquainted with that own homes have all bought in established neighborhoods with older housing stock that needs some sort of updating. They are renovating as they go along to modernize and personalize their homes. They are all looking to be in their houses for several years.
...because it's oh-so-trendy and uber-cool.
Fast-forward a few years, when they have school-age kids and they get a look at the teeming hellholes of chaos known as urban schools. Suddenly, that I-heart-the-city cosmopolitanism isn't such a draw anymore.
joined the navy specifically TO BE car-less? In this society, being car-less is a significant empediment being a full citizen. Such situations make you dependent on the collective, and to the schedules of mass transit. Car-less is no way for an american to live.
Fixed.
just wait too, very young kids say what they think, and haven’t had their common sense destroyed yet. Wait till they visit the grandparents big fun house, with its big fun yard,,,and ask ‘ mommy,, why is their house better than ours? I like to be outside.’ lol
It was not the boomers that overpaid. Many sold into the bubble. It was the one's in the mid-30's that overpaid into the Mcmansions.
My house was built in 1972. It has a formal living room that we never use and a dining room that we use two days a year. If I built another house I would never have eithe rof these in the floor plan. I would have a media room though with a 50+ inch TV and surround sound.
I also would have a three car garage.
I must have raised the strangest kids ever! All three of my boys want to live way out in the country, have 4x4 trucks with a lifts on them, be able to hunt, fish, ride 4 wheelers and dirtbikes.
“One-third are willing to pay for the ability to walk,” “They don’t want to be in a cookie-cutter type of development. ...The suburbs will need to evolve to be attractive to Gen Y.”
My gen X friends said the exact same thing back in 1991:
1) Guess what...most are married, live in cookie cutter developments and drive everywhere.
2) others had enough of the rat race,went off the grid and moved into the country where it was SAFER to grow their weed...
3) Some moved overseas
4) I’m the LAST of a group of friends who still lives in a mostly Urban area.
My kids are 25 and 26. They are professional and married. Both are looking for homes and the only thing about this article that is true in my kids’ case is that they want to walk everywhere. They are looking for older traditional homes with character in the suburbs as are most of their friends.
You raised them to be those e-e-e-e-vil rugged individualist "Clingers" the liberals keep warning us about.
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