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 ...
We have a formal dining room that has never been used except to store things off and on and we have been here 10+ years. The nice living room adjacent to it is used to host the Christmas tree and sometimes me doing a little photography. It is a waste of space.
Temporary until they have kids...
I seriously doubt if children are part of the equation for most.
If the millennials congregate in a metro area and stay there to raise their kids, don’t you think the quality of the schools will improve?
In the 80s, we lived in a wonderful residential section of DC. Our street was rowhouse after rowhouse populated by couples in their mid 30s to mid 40s with young children ... all under the age of 5. As the kids approached school age, one by one the families moved to MD or VA for the better schools. I’ve often wondered, had everyone stayed put, what effect all those families might have had on the local public school.
I have a feeling the millennials will stay put and demand change. It will be interesting to see what effect they have.
Ever notice, they loudly proclaim that they won’t just be cookie cutter people,,,,, while they march to the same train stations, from the same walking neighborhoods, where they all live in the same smallish condos, where they all think alike? Its really kinda comical.
This, we cannot allow. History is my witness.
Conformity in their non-comformity.
When the wife and I wanted a new house, the only thing offered were McMansions. Crappy design, questionable build quality, etc. So we had a house designed to our specs. Super enegery efficient, not because I care about global warming, or saving the whales or whatever, but because I had to heat it. Once the design was done, I couldn’t find anyone to build it because it used materials and techniques not common to the average, crappy contractor in my area. So I built it myself. Well, about 70% myself (myself meaning I actually did 70% of everything). I was 35 at the time and that was 2 years ago, so I guess I’m not technically in that ‘slacker’ generation. My point is, builders are not going to build these types of houses because they can’t squeeze out the profits than they can with crappy McMansions. If you want a house like that, you have to either build it yourself or prepare to pay 3x the sq. footage price of a McMansion.
We live in a large house built in the eighties on thirty acres. The area has developed significantly since we bought it, which drove the value to the point we would have to take a severe beating to sell it. My 20yo son wants no part of it. Too much upkeep and chores. My 16yo daughter says she would love to live here, but only if she gets married to an out doorsy farm boy type. At which point we would shuffle off to the nursing home.
Same argument has been made since the 70s. Remember when Brownstone-like townhomes and condominiums were the rage alternative to gated community HOAs?
The big environmental kick of the 90s was to make the US more European, build communities in suburban America like urban NYC or environmental policies of San Francisco Bay Area.
Urban sprawl became the next buzzword, but it wasn’t land development which promoted urban sprawl as much as it was the codification of all building codes throughout the US, leaning towards global policies.
Local policy was easier to implement by simply accepting national and international codes, instead of thinking them through on their own.
Now planning commissions in 4000 person townships have spread their borders by 50 miles to the next township in rural desert, but mandate a residence may not be used for business, when paupers barely have enough money to build a shack, unless they sign a 30-40 yr mortgage and relinquish freedom to an outside third parties, whose controlling interests are overseas.
Eerily similar to colonial life under the Empire.
I think the new homes that still had the formal rooms after that were probably larger than the typical 1,800 square foot, three bedroom homes in my area.
Our house was built in 1978 and we too have a formal living room and dining room that was never used, so.......I turned it into a media room and game room for the kids. Have all leather furniture and a large tv, DVD player, etc in there. In the dining room I put a game table complete with poker chips, etc.
Now the kids never bother us when they are here and the rooms get plenty of use.
In the summer we do outdoor movies (have a 12 ft X 7 ft screen) and the older kids still wind up in the media/game room playing poker. Lol
Average homebuilders build average houses. For you super-custom home, there are builders, just not what you would want to pay them.
“Trend” is the polite way of saying that the younger generation will not be nearly as wealthy in real terms as their parents. They will be living in small, efficient houses close to transportation because they can’t afford anything more than that. That’s not to say that many houses built during the bubble were not ridiculously extravagant, but that’s just a sign that the current home-buying generation is filled with people who think they should have it all and live for today.
This is one sign that the older generations have squandered our inheritance. Loaded the next generation up with debt, or at least increased it. A kid in his 20s making $10 per hour will be lucky to afford any house, much less a nice one.
Formal living rooms are out. Dens, family rooms, game rooms and media rooms are in.
Obviously still single.
absolutely. That is exactly the changes I would make in my house if I could.
The time frame for my statement was clearly from the mid-'70s forward, not the last few years.
I realize that, but when you interview contractors and the lot of them don’t even know how to hand-cut rafters, you have a problem.
The schools on the city center cannot be improved. The city centers are run by democrat union machines, and are flooded with minority demographics that are very hostile to the things it would take to improve the schools. The likely result if those people would have stayed, would be that their kids would have been dragged down. And consider this,,, lets say the schools would have improved had they stayed. How long would that improvement have taken to really produce a deep change? Five years? Would you send your 7 year old kid to a poor quality urban school, happy in the knowledge that it’ll be a great place when they are 12? My job is to educate my kids,,, not to use my kid to improve them for future kids.
“There’s going to be a lot of large homes in secluded subdivisions that may be hard to market. “
Maybe as single family homes, but as 4-family apartments with section 8 vouchers, they’ll be plenty of demand. Put 6-10 people per apartment, plenty of parking on the front lawn....
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