Sunday, July 6, 2008

The Inspiration of a Revolution!

Spending the 4th of July weekend at my mountain cabin was a blast of a good time. We did everything including fishing, grilling out, picnics, campfires, puzzles, playing cards, reading books and sometimes just doing nothing.

Being an owner of a second home log cabin is fun.

My cabin isn’t very big. The main cabin is about 800 square feet and the guest cabin is about 350 square feet. It has about as much square footage in porches and decks as it does inside space.

My home in the city is three stories tall with close to 800 square feet on each of three levels.

Every day, I count my blessings that I don’t have lawn at either home. It’s delightful not having to cut grass.

Last fall in one of the Blogs, I wrote about the next boom in housing. Some of our clients thought that I was crazy when I wrote it.

Course most of those offering me commentary are all Baby Boomers.

I keep telling clients that the line, “build it and they will come”…is dead.

The Baby Boomers really fueled the housing boom of the 80s and the 90s. Most of the builders out there are Baby Boomers. How does that line read…”Birds of a feather…”

They are the ones that added such wonderful features to the house like the “family room,” the “study,” the “morning coffee room,” the “play room,” the “flexible fourth bedroom” and the “bonus room” over the garage.

In 1950, the size of the average single-family house in the US was 1,000 square feet. Today, the average single-family house is 2,400 square feet. That’s 140% larger!

The average US single-family house of 2,400 square feet compares to the average home in Canada with 1,800 square feet, the average home in Japan with 1,000 square feet and the average home in Britain of 815 square feet.

Those Brits are famous for the “cottage” style of living!

The lead article in this month's Fast Company Magazine is titled “The Eco-Home of Tomorrow.” I really don't care what your company makes or what service it provides, you need to read this article. It's all about what is going to be the next wave of housing.

It features two cool guys…one that is age 36 and the other age 35…who are “retooling” their thinking and developing carbon neutral homes and methods of construction.

The article also features Steve Glenn who was the former Chairman and CEO of PeopleLink, the leading provider of enterprise e-community solutions software and services to clients like Oracle, GE, MTV, Paramount, Reuters and CBS.

Steve just started a new company called LivingHomes Business System that is pioneering another wave of modular housing that is eco-green and energy efficient. All of the modular homes meet LEED silver standards.

There are several other “Innovators and Inventors” featured in the Fast Company article…all of whom are jumping into the housing market and leading the wave of the next economic boom.

To save money, I got rid of my housekeeper. I am now cleaning both my home in the city and the cabin in the mountains. In some ways, it’s kind of like working out at a home gym.

After cleaning both over this past weekend, I have to say that downsizing to a similar square footage as the cabin is something that I am really seriously toying around with in my future planning.

As one of the featured quotes in the Fast Company article notes…”If we can un-name the rooms…we can give you more opportunity in less space.”

I agree.

There are a lot of companies out there are clinging on to the past model of housing as forward-thinking entrepreneurs, architects and developers are already envisioning the post-bust cycle of housing where smaller is better.

This past May, the bulk of the Millennium Generation that is just shy of the Baby Boomers in size got their college diplomas and headed out into the work force.

The demand for housing is coming and coming on fast. To meet it, we must ask…”How do you inspire a revolution?”

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