Design Trends for Move-up Buyers

Looking for the latest “must have” design features to wow your move-up buyers? Experts offered the following tips during January’s International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas:

• Kitchens that impress. Kitchens will always be the center of the house. You can’t make an island too big.  Double islands and drop-down islands that become a table are also popular options.

• Laundry connections. Stackable washer and dryers in an upstairs bathroom where you can get light into the laundry space. The laundry space is the ‘kitchen of the future’.

• New technology. The latest homes are replacing traditional wall outlets with USB outlets and providing one cable outlet with Wi-Fi for the rest of the house, Sauls said.

• Great rooms and open floor plans. “How do you make a smaller house feel larger? Break down barriers. People want to see from the front to the back of the house, he added.

• Outdoor rooms. Good quality outdoor spaces are replacing formal living room and dining rooms. They incorporate glass door systems that create a seamless transition between the indoor and outdoor section of the home. Many of these outdoor outdoor spaces include kitchens with full amenities.

• Spa master baths. They are characterized by light, open airy spaces. Many builders are getting rid of tubs in favor huge, luxurious showers.

It’s all about how you manage the space. Features can be scalable and affordable.

 

Plansource, Inc., http://www.plansonline.com, remains a portal of information for homebuilders and the homebuilding industry.

10 Design Trends for Next 10 Years

 

Top 10 residential design trends for the next 10 years:

• Technological integration becoming more prevalent,  with both dedicated support for personal devices, along with automated controls for temperature, security and lighting
• Increased consumer awareness about environmental health issues leading to more widespread use of low or no volatile organic compounds for paint and composite wood, natural fiber upholstery, carpets without polyvinyl chloride backing and air purification systems
• Growing demand for design strategies that strengthen homes against natural disasters including elevating residences, windows with impact glazing, dedicated safe rooms and backup power generation
• Increasing use of energy-efficient and other sustainable design elements and products such as solar panels, water reclamation systems and tankless water heaters
• Aging-in-place and universal design elements to accommodate an aging population including wider hallways, added handrails and one-level living spaces
• Kitchens serving as focal point of the home highlighted by open design concepts
• Heavy emphasis and investment in outdoor living spaces
• Need for space devoted to home offices reflecting changing work patterns
• Infill development promoting smaller, better designed homes
• Strong preference for urban lifestyle characteristics resulting in higher-density development that provide additional amenities to residents

 

Plansource, Inc., http://www.plansonline.com, remains a portal of information for homebuilders and the homebuilding industry.

Reprinted from AIA

Florida? Better Climate Can Make People Relocate

What states are the top picks for Americans looking to move? Florida, California, Hawaii, Colorado, and New York, according to a new survey by Harris Poll of more than 2,200 U.S. adults.

Besides looking at the most desired moving locations, the survey asked respondents to name their top reasons for wanting to move. The number one moving motivation for respondents was wanting to live in a better climate. In fact, the survey found that more than six in ten residents who live on the East Coast – 64 percent – and 61 percent of Midwesterners say they’d consider moving in order to live in an area with a better climate and weather.

These are the top moving motivations for survey respondents:

• 52% said they’d consider moving to another state to live in for a better climate or better weather.
• 41% said they’d consider moving for a job opportunity.
• 35% said they’d factor in proximity to family.
• 25% said they’d consider a move for health reasons
• 18% said they’d move to be closer to friends.
• 16% said they’d relocate to be closer to a significant other.
• 14% said they’d move for greater educational opportunities.
• 13% wanted to live in an area with a more accepting lifestyle.
• 11% said they wanted to move to a place with political views that are more accepting.
• 11% wanted to move to an area where recreational marijuana is legal.
• 7% said they’d consider moving to a place where their religious views are more accepted.

Plansource, Inc., www.plansonline.com, remains a portal of information for homebuilders and the homebuilding industry.

 

Reprinted from Realtor Today

6 Stellar Reasons to Buy A Home in 2016

Is it really 2016 already?  For those of you who happen to be planning on buying a home in the new year—or even just trying to—there’s a whole lot to celebrate. Why? A variety of financial vectors have dovetailed to make this the perfect storm for home buyers to get out there and make an (winning) offer. Here are six home-buying reasons to be thankful while ringing in the new year:

Reason No. 1: Interest rates are still at record lows

Even though they may creep up at any moment, it’s nonetheless a fact that interest rates on home loans are at historic lows, with a 30-year fixed-rate home loan still hovering around 4%.

“Remember 18.5% in the ’80s?” asks Tom Postilio, a real estate broker with Douglas Elliman Real Estate and a star of HGTV’s “Selling New York.”“It is likely that we’ll never see interest rates this low again. So while prices are high in some markets, the savings in interest payments could easily amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars over the life of the mortgage.”

Reason No. 2: Rents have skyrocketed

Another reason home buyers are lucky is that rents are going up, up, up! (This, on the other hand, is a reason not to be thankful if you’re a renter.) In fact, rents outpaced home values in 20 of the 35 biggest housing markets in 2015. What’s more, according to the 2015 Rent.com Rental Market Report, 88% of property managers raised their rent in the past 12 months, and an 8% hike is predicted for 2016.

“In most metropolitan cities, monthly rent is comparable to that of a monthly mortgage payment, sometimes more,” says Heather Garriock, mortgage agent for The Mortgage Group. “Doesn’t it make more sense to put those monthly chunks of money into your own appreciating asset rather than handing it over to your landlord and saying goodbye to it forever?”

Reason No. 3: Home prices are stabilizing

For the first time in years, prices that have been climbing steadily upward are stabilizing, restoring a level playing field that helps buyers drive a harder bargain with sellers, even in heated markets.

“Local markets vary, but generally we are experiencing a cooling period,” says Postilio. “At this moment, buyers have the opportunity to capitalize on this.”

Reason No. 4: Down payments don’t need to break the bank

Probably the biggest obstacle that prevents renters from becoming homeowners is pulling together a down payment. But today, that chunk of change can be smaller, thanks to a variety of programs to help home buyers. For instance, the new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Home Possible Advantage Program allows for a 3% down payment for credit scores as low as 620.

Reason No. 5: Mortgage insurance is a deal, too

If you do decide to put less than 20% down on a home, you are then required to have mortgage insurance (basically in case you default). A workaround to handle this, however, is to take out a loan from the Federal Housing Administration—a government mortgage insurer that backs loans with down payments as low as 3.5% and credit scores as low as 580. The fees are way down from 1.35% to 0.85% of the mortgage balance, meaning your monthly mortgage total will be significantly lower if you fund it this way. In fact, the FHA predicts this 37% annual premium cut will bring 250,000 first-time buyers into the market. Why not be one of them?

Reason No. 6: You’ll reap major tax breaks

Tax laws continue to favor homeowners, so you’re not just buying a place to live—you’re getting a tax break! The biggest one is that unless your home loan is more than $1 million, you can deduct all the monthly interest you are paying on that loan. Homeowners may also deduct certain home-related expenses and home property taxes.

 

Plansource, Inc., http://www.plansonline.com, remains a portal of information for homebuilders and the homebuilding industry

Reprinted from Realtor.com

 

Builder Confidence Highest since 2005

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes in July hit a level of 60 on the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today while the June reading was revised upward one point to 60 as well. The last time the HMI reached this level was November 2005.

“The fact that builder confidence has returned to levels not seen since 2005 shows that housing continues to improve at a steady pace,” said NAHB Chairman Tom Woods. “As we head into the second half of 2015, we should expect a continued recovery of the housing market.”

“This month’s reading is in line with recent data showing stronger sales in both the new and existing home markets as well as continued job growth,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “However, builders still face a number of challenges, including shortages of lots and labor.”

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as good, fair or poor.

Plansource, Inc. remains a portal for information for homebuilders and the homebuilding industry.  http://www.plansonline.com.  http://www.facebook/plansource

Reprinted from Builder Magazine

New Home Design Trends

Nick Lehnert, executive director at Irvine, Calif.–based KTGY, and Mollie Carmichael, principal at John Burns Real Estate Consulting in Irvine, assembled for BIG BUILDER 14 ethnographically informed design trends. All 14 of these trends fall within three primary assertions in today’s new-home market: scale trumps size; livability trumps salability; technology can solve for both scale and livability. Below are this year’s top design trends in the new-home market.

1. Scale and Function

The latest American Institute of Architects’ Design Trends Survey notes that households have a “growing interest in going smaller due to an effort to contain energy costs, and a significant higher number of architects report demand for smaller homes.” Scale and function are the solution here, not sheer square footage.

2. ”Private” Space

Boomers, empty nesters, and Gen Y cohorts express a desire for less maintenance and more privatized outdoor space, breaking away from the traditional “public” backyard. This design trend can be achieved by creating spaces that are private from the neighboring house by either positioning architecture around the outdoor space or by allowing the outdoor space to pierce architecture, affording more interior living spaces to be exposed to the outdoor area.

3. Indoor/Outdoor Connectivity

Bring the outdoors into the home experience. These thresholds to the outdoors offer more light and exciting access to “private” outdoor space. The result makes the interior feel like it extends beyond walls.

4. Covered Outdoor Rooms

Outdoor rooms expand the utility of the adjoining interior rooms and become outdoor retreats, still covered and protected but open to the outdoors.

5. Personal Touches

Whether it is a resale or a new home, the consumer is looking for and purchasing feature elements—such as kitchen products, bath fixtures, and custom flooring—that reflect their lifestyle and aesthetic preferences. Now take this trend to the architecture/structure of the house. Each consumer will “live” the interior space of a home differently.

6. Super Kitchens

The kitchen is viewed as the “hub” of the house. While providing the main function of a place for food preparation, the kitchen also serves as an entertainment/conversation area. Kitchens are now open to other rooms, visible and exposed. An island offers additional seating capacity along with prep space, and pantries need to be able to store more packaged foods, which often are purchased in bulk at stores like Costco. As the hub, it becomes a consumer’s dream to design these elements together with function, practicality, and flair.

7. Spalike Master Baths

The bathtub is not dead—rather, it has become an afterthought in most designs. However, trends reveal that women tend to take more baths than men as they’re more apt to dedicate the time. It is an experience and offers an opportunity for relaxation, so why not design the setting to enhance the experience?

8. Larger Media Areas

Many households these days possess at least one large flat-screen TV. The new, larger sizes of these televisions create a design need for more wall space and more seating capability.

9. More Garage Space

Garages are more than “housing” for vehicles. In fact, the garage is one of the only places within a “programmed” house that will offer the consumer what we call idea space. Creating a larger garage to accommodate more functions becomes a value to the consumer.

10. Smarter Storage

Always an important factor, storage rarely gets designed into a home, leaving the consumer to create their own space. Smarter, well-designed storage is especially useful within smaller spaces.

11. Office Space

The office/den is trending to a higher need and the “want” issue dictates the best location within the home. Who uses it and where it is located becomes critical to the consumer and how they value the space. As a “utilized” office space, the front of the home off the entry is not considered an intelligent and practical location. The better location is closer to the “living” area of the house—the kitchen hub and family room.

12. Entry and Exits

Buyers are looking for entry drama and home announcement when greeting guests. As such, the entry and exits become important for impact. Over the past 10 to 15 years, we have stacked living over the entries. To be able to create some level of volume increases demand.

13. Dual-Use Homes

Multigenerational living has become part of the “next” culture. Families are staying together longer and the coupling of families becomes economic as well as cultural.

14. Technological Advances

Technology products create a need for a new lifestyle that revolves around the constant use handheld electronic devices. We will be designing small “server” rooms as smart technology continues to enter the home.

 

Reprinted from Builder Magazine

Plansource, Inc., remains a portal of information for homebuilders and the homebuilding industry. http://www.plansonline.com

15 Fastest Growing Metros

Reprinted from Builder Magazine

 

Metrostudy does a 100% count within markets across the country of move-ins into newly-built homes.  This is a powerful and reliable measure of end-user demand.  The top two markets have outsized percentage changes because they are starting from a low base number.  In terms of the large markets, Central Florida has seen a 24.3% increase in new home demand in the past year, and Charlotte, NC, has seen a 23.4%.  Atlanta, which was savaged by the downturn, has seen a 22.9% increase.  New home construction is picking up in all of these markets, as builders scramble to meet increased demand.

Here are the top 15 markets by change in move-ins:

Rank	Market	2Q13 Move-Ins	2Q14 Move-Ins	% Change
1	Reno	233	464	99.1%
2	Rio Grande Valley	336	466	38.7%
3	Central Florida	3,104	3,859	24.3%
4	Charlotte	1,643	2,027	23.4%
5	Atlanta	2,508	3,082	22.9%
6	Northern Virginia	865	1,037	19.9%
7	Jacksonville	1,119	1,303	16.4%
8	Sarasota/Bradenton	647	739	14.2%
9	St.George/Mesquite	296	336	13.5%
10	Austin	2,216	2,497	12.7%
11	Houston	6,072	6,797	11.9%
12	Nashville	1,101	1,217	10.5%
13	Dallas/Ft.Worth	4,775	5,249	9.9%
14	Central California	1,496	1,627	8.8%
15	South Florida	938	1,020	8.7%

New Bathroom Trends

What’s the greatest thing since indoor plumbing? His-and-hers shower stalls. But say bye-bye to the bidet.

Luxury bathrooms have undergone some notable changes since 2008, considered the peak of the real-estate bubble, according to a survey by the Home Innovation Research Labs (HIRL). The biggest casualties are whirlpool bathtubs and stand-alone bidets, down 9.4% and 34.9%, respectively, over the six-year period.

   

In the study, conducted between January and March, roughly 1,400 home builders cited trends in new construction in 2013. Analysts at HIRL, a subsidiary of the National Association of Home Builders, then compared the findings with its 2008 survey results.

“Since the recession, there have been a lot of trade-offs,” said Ed Hudson, director of the group’s market-research division. Luxury homes have shrunk slightly, from 4,190 square feet in 2008 to 4,049 square feet in 2013. Home buyers, even on the luxury end, are more conscientious about what they look for in amenities, he said.

In some cases, buyers toned down the guest bathrooms to focus on the master suite, said Scott Hobbs, president of custom home builder Hobbs Inc. in New Canaan, Conn. “People choose to spend money where they’re most going to enjoy it,” he said.

Aesthetically, new homes today are less ornate than they were in the go-go days of the housing boom, said April Saxe, an agent with Houlihan Lawrence who sells multimillion-dollar homes in Westchester, N.Y. “The [whirlpool] tub has certainly been on the way out,” she said. Instead, that space may be going toward a new soaking tub or shower stall.

Even for buyers who weren’t hit hard by the downturn, decorum dictated some stylistic changes. The bathroom is less showy and much more contemporary since the recession, said Leo Birov, founder of Heritage Luxury Builders in Northfield, Ill. “Everything looks more transitional now,” he said, with popular features including heated floors, steam showers and computerized controls.

But that doesn’t mean bathrooms are less luxurious. Mark Pulte, founder of luxury home builder Mark Timothy Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., said he is building showers with a half dozen body sprays, his-and-her shower heads and waterproof keypad controls for all the nozzles.

He is noticing one demographic shift on the ultrahigh end. Younger clients want one large his-and-hers shower with two entrances; “the older crowd wants separate showers.”

Plansource, Inc., http://www.plansonline.com, remains a portal for information on the homebuilding industry.

Reprinted from WSJ and Builder magazine

Top Ten States For New Homes Sales-Florida is #2

New home sales data from the Census Bureau showed a drop of 8.1 percent on a seasonally-adjusted basis.  The decline since the beginning of the year comes to 11 percent.

The northeastern U.S. markets slowed sharply.

In June, and so far in July, we are back to a situation where home shoppers are shopping but a relatively small proportion of them are actually buying.  This is explained in some cases by a long lead time (people taking longer to make a decision), and in other cases by a complete reluctance to buy.

Here is a look at the last year in New Home Sales by region showing sales have decreased slightly over the past few months.

In Southern California in particular, conversion rates are slipping, and traffic is still high.

According to our weekly data in Southern California, traffic is still running high relative to last year’s levels, but conversion rates are sub-par, and still slipping.

A related story is last week’s surprisingly weak read on housing starts.  The real explanation seems to have been lost in the shuffle: icy weather conditions in the Deep South last winter slowed the pace of development (paving, infrastructure), exacerbating the shortage of lots in places like Raleigh-Durham.

Despite low conversion rates nationwide, hot markets are keeping sales up in some states. The strong Texas markets and active adult magnets in Florida have pushed the two to the top of the list for new home sales in 2014. Here is a look at the year-to-date top 10 states.

Top 10 States for New Home Sales in 2014

1. Texas: 33,177 closings
2. Florida: 19,416 closings
3. California: 14,280 closings
4. North Carolina: 10,249 closings
5. Georgia: 7,280 closings
6. Colorado: 5,602 closings
7. Washington: 5,337 closings
8. Arizona: 5,309 closings
9. Virginia: 4,836 closings
10. South Carolina: 4,345 closings

Plansource, Inc., is a Tampa-based full service residential design firm that remains a portal of information for homebuilders and the homebuilding industry.  http://www.plansonline.com

 

Reprinted from Builder Magazine

What Ethnic Home Buyers Really Want

Findings from the latest NAHB study on housing preferences, What Home Buyers Really Want: Ethnic Preferences, show there are both similarities and differences in what home buyers of different racial/ethnic backgrounds most want to have in their homes.

Based on an extensive list of more than 120 home and community features that buyers rated as essential, desirable, indifferent, or ‘do not want’, the table below shows the top 10 most wanted features for White, African-American, Hispanic, and Asian buyers.

The four features that are common to all four lists, i.e., they are really wanted by buyers of all racial/ethnic backgrounds:
 A laundry room 
 Energy-star rated appliances
 Energy-star rating for the whole home
 Exterior lighting

Three features that are relatively more important to minority buyers than to White buyers, since they appear on the top 10 list for the minority groups but not for White buyers:
 Living room
 Dining room
 Patio

Two features that make it into White buyers’ top 10 most wanted list, but are ranked lower by the three minority groups:
 Garage storage
 Insulation higher than required by code

When building homes, it is as critical to understand which features home buyers really want, as it is to know which ones they do not want and will probably not pay for.

Interestingly, there are quite a few similarities in what home buyers reject across the different groups: 7 of the 10 most unwanted features are common across the four rejection lists:
An elevator – the single-most unwanted feature across all four groups
 Golf course community – second most unwanted feature across the board
 High density community
 Only a shower stall in the master bath (no tub)
 Gated community (with a monthly fee of $100 to $200)
 Wine cooler
 Wet bar

Plansource, Inc., www.planonline.com, remains a portal of information for homebuilders and the homebuilding industry.

 

Reprinted from Builder Magazine/NAHB