The Latest New Home Design Trends

Each year at the National Association of Home Builders’ International Builders’ Show, the Best in American Living Awards (BALA) provide recognition to builders and design professionals who have accomplished outstanding design achievements. Awards are given in all sectors of the residential housing industry, including single-family production, custom, rental, affordable, interiors, remodeling, community and international.

The BALA awards spotlight the latest design trends, and are often a sign of what will become popular in new residential construction around the country. Here are a few of the top trends home buyers can expect to soon see in new home designs, if they aren’t already:

Classic yet Contemporary

Homes that are hot sellers on the market right now are those that successfully blend old styles with new. Timeless and elegant spaces are created by blending modern and traditional elements such as crown molding with fewer or less fancy pieces. Elevations are clean and simple and interiors are fresh and light, not ornate and heavy like the formerly-popular elements such as ornamental columns, complex crown molding and cabinetry with additional applied decorative pieces.

Multigenerational Living

Given the increasing cultural diversity in America as well as the state of the economy during the past few years, many families are all living under one roof. To save money, young adults are living at home after they graduate school, and retired parents are sharing homes with their grown children and their families. Single-family home designs accommodate multigenerational households, such as homes with two master suites, often with at least one located on the ground floor to be more accessible.

Cost Effective Designs

Rectangular home designs are more cost effective, so new homes no longer have the “exploding house” look with multiple, odd roof lines or the unnecessary interior volumes they create. But home designs can still be visually stimulating with creative and innovative modifications that reduce construction and system costs to the home owner. For example, mixing materials such as metal, wood and stone in the façade give a home a modern look.

The Family Triangle

Open floor plans is a trend that isn’t new, but has expanded.  Ground-floor focused, open floor plan living spaces used to be specific to certain regions and generations, but now it is desired by all buyer profiles across the country. Many designs eliminate the living room and add a flex space or den adjacent to the kitchen or family room to allow for privacy when needed, and still accommodate flexibility for many different uses.

Kitchen Entertaining with a View

The kitchen remains one of the most important rooms in the house. Yet kitchens are still a modest size as the average overall square footage of new homes has decreased in the past few years. So designers are incorporating creative storage solutions to both suit the home owners’ unique needs and to allow more windows above the countertops rather than cabinets to retain a feeling of open, light space. 

Green Design Elements that Consumers Understand and Want

The 2011 BALA entries reflected the fact that home buyers now expect a certain level of green design in their new homes that provide both comfort and cost savings. Green technologies such as tankless water heaters and highly efficient HVAC systems that directly impact and reduce operating costs are commonly installed in new construction.

To see all the winners of 2011 BALA awards, go to www.nahb.org/BALA. To find a professional home builder or remodeler in the Grand Traverse Area go to www.hbagta.com.

Watch for Hidden Costs: Comparing New Homes to Foreclosures

The economic downturn has hurt many American families during the past few years, and sadly that means there are a larger number of foreclosed homes on the market than during a healthy economy. The lower price of these homes can make them look like a bargain, but home buyers  need to carefully compare the actual cost—and advantages—of a newly constructed home versus a foreclosed one before you buy.

During an educational seminar at the 2012 International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Jay McKenzie, vice president of Builder Digital Experience, LLC, offered a number of advantages of purchasing a brand new home, and  hidden costs of foreclosed homes that buyers need to consider:

·         Many foreclosures are sold “as is” with no disclosure requirements. You could be surprised with major repair bills for issues such as foundation faults or other structural defects, mold, hidden water damage, unsafe wiring, rodent infestations and more. A foreclosed home that appears to have been renovated may not have been done so with the proper permits and inspections. A brand new home provides peace of mind for your family’s safety because it has passed inspections and conforms to current building codes. A new home is also under warranty and any issues that arise during the warranty term will be fixed at no cost to the home owner.  

·         New homes can be personalized with appliances, cabinets, countertops, carpets, floor coverings, paint color and other design elements to meet your family’s needs and tastes. They also come designed for modern lifestyles, with open space floor plans, walk-in closets, creative storage solutions and conveniently-located laundry facilities. With a foreclosure, you’ll have to spend time and money to knock out walls, re-paint, and make other renovations to change the previous owner’s tastes to your own.

·         Newly built homes are highly energy-efficient, saving the buyer money and helping the environment. New windows, doors and insulation better control the home’s interior climate, and Energy Star-rated appliances and other modern components will help save costs on utility bills. With a foreclosure, if the appliances, water heater or HVAC are in working order, depending on their age, they may not be for long. And they certainly aren’t as energy-efficient as new ones.   

·         New homes come outfitted with the latest home automation and wiring components that provide state-of-the-art technology capabilities to accommodate modern home appliances and entertainment resources such as high-definition televisions, full-house sound systems, hard-wired fire and security alarms and more. Foreclosures probably don’t have updated wiring, and old wiring not only may not be able to handle modern resources—it may be unsafe and a fire hazard, and will cost a lot to update to current standards.    

·     Financing a new home is easier than financing a foreclosed home. Many builders offer incentives to reduce closing costs and can complete the closing quickly, unlike banks that just want to get foreclosed homes off their books and may have a backlog of homes to process, which can take months or years.

It is important to note that some home builders have expanded their businesses to include buying foreclosures, then renovating and re-selling them. In these cases, the builder normally has inspected the home for hidden damage or dangerous conditions, gotten the required permits, and completed the necessary repairs. They also often renovate, replace appliances and components, and perform many cosmetic upgrades to make the home an attractive and safe place for the home buyer. 

For more information on what to consider when buying a new home, contact the Home Builders Association of the Grand Traverse Area at 231.946.2305  or visit the National Association of Home Builders online at www.nahb.org.

Builder Confidence Unchanged in March

WASHINGTON, March 19 - Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes was unchanged in March from a revised level of 28 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), released today. This means that following five consecutive months of gains, the HMI is now holding at its highest level since June of 2007.

"While builders are still very cautious at this time, there is a sense that many local housing markets have started to move in the right direction and that prospects for future sales are improving," said Barry Rutenberg, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Gainesville, Florida. "This is demonstrated by the fact that the HMI component measuring builder expectations continued climbing for a sixth straight month in March, to its highest level in more than four years."

"Builder confidence is now twice as strong as it was six months ago, and the West was the only region to experience a decline this month following an unusual spike in February," observed NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. "That said, many of our members continue to cite obstacles on the road to recovery, including persistently tight builder and buyer credit and the ongoing inventory of distressed properties in some markets."

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 20 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." The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as "high to very high," "average" or "low to very low." Scores from each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

While the HMI component gauging current sales conditions declined one point to 29 in March, the component gauging sales expectations in the next six months gained two points to 36 and the component gauging traffic of prospective buyers held unchanged at 22.

Regionally in March, the HMI gained five points to 25 in the Northeast, two points to 32 in the Midwest and two points to 27 in the South, but fell 10 points in the West following a 22-point gain in the previous month.

Bogus EPA Lead Paint Violation email

RE: Bogus EPA Lead Paint Violation email

Many remodelers and other members around the state are receiving an email on the EPA lead paint regulations with the subject line “Violation.”

The email goes on to say “According to our data, your company does not have the required EPA Lead Paint forms needed for work/renovations of homes built prior to 1978.”

This is just the latest in a long string of scam emails and letters being sent out by companies in hopes of scaring contractors into buying their products. In this case the spurious email comes from a company called “Lead Paint Forms Store” and clicking on the link in the email takes you to their website where you can remedy your “violation” by purchasing their products.

These type of scams where a contractor is notified that according to someone’s data/records your company does not have the forms/signs/anything else needed to comply with the law are all too common and should always be ignored.

Lee

Lee Schwartz
Executive Vice President for Government Relations
Michigan Association of Home Builders