Joan McCloskey of Des Moines, Iowa, and Gopal Ahluwalia of Washington, D.C., are a terrific housing industry team whose Holy Grail is researching the needs and wants of home buyers.
McCloskey, executive building editor of Better Homes & Gardens, is big on aesthetics–color, form, flow, texture–and deep-down cravings–a private space for painting or weaving, a window seat, a kitchen with a pizza oven. Ahluwalia, director of research for the National Association of Home Builders, is all about statistics, pie charts and bar graphs, pragmatic findings such as “Most Popular Bathroom Features” (88 percent of his survey’s respondents said linen closets, 49 percent opted for private toilet compartments).
McCloskey’s fact-finding is based on new products market research and heavily on the magazine’s annual home improvement competition. She believes homeowners’ decisions about how and why they alter and upgrade what they already have is the best possible demonstration of their wants.
Ahluwalia blends Census 2000 results with those from his annual survey for his comprehensive report, “What 21st Century Home Buyers Want.”
This polling started with an original screening question mailed to 40,000 households and culminated with an analysis of an eight-page questionnaire mailed to 3,000 households.
The duo has been presenting their findings for the last five years to rapt audiences at the International Builders’ show, including the event earlier this year in Atlanta.
But what this House Hunter wants is a personal ingredient: Input from local builders and recent home buyers. Who else can best tell us what real, rather than anonymous, people say they want and then actually buy?
We gleaned data from a year’s worth of House Hunter visits, recent conversations with home buyers and interviews with builders.
For example, basements didn’t figure prominently in the pros’ research, but they certainly do on the local level; from first-time buyers on a budget to those with few if any financial constraints, basements are a must for extra living space, storage, entertaining and more.
Wide-ranging “wants” ranged from McCloskey’s opening statement–“They want something totally different from anyone else”–to Ahluwalia’s Exhibit 1 chart showing how changes in the makeup of households from 1970 to 1998 affect buyers’ decisions relating to wants.
(Example: In 1970, couples with a child represented 40 percent of home buyers, in 1998 they were down to 25 percent; categories with big increases were single individuals and single parents). Among myriad wants we heard from prospective buyers: “Enough money to afford what we really need, not just want.”
We’ll zero in on the most-mentioned wants from all corners, but if we had to come down to the fewest words, a simple “more” would do it.
The average size of new single family homes went from 1,500 square feet in 1970 to 2,265 square feet in 2000.
For another take on those numbers, consider that 65 percent of the new homes that were completed as recently as 1971 had 1,600 square feet or less; that number dropped to 24 percent in 2000.
By comparison, in 1971, only 9 percent of new homes had 2,400 square feet or more; that figure had jumped to 35 percent in 2000.
Specialty rooms
The 2000 census revealed that 35 percent of the new homes completed last year had four bedrooms.
Bigger families? For some, sure. But, a bedroom can be anything a home owner wants it to be: A playroom, an office, exercise room, “one space for you and one for me,” a meditation retreat, media or crafts room.
Call them flex, bonus or specialty rooms–be they on the living or sleeping level or in the basement–individualized specialty spaces are becoming de rigueur.
For Kim and Jason Papes, Miranda’s playroom and bedroom were so important to the design of their home at Mill Creek in Geneva that builder Silvestri Custom Homes of St. Charles called the plan The Miranda.
The young couple’s daughter Miranda, now 2 years old, has a walk-in playhouse and walls covered with Dr. Seuss-inspired drawings.
Second-floor game rooms are popular with buyers, according to Jean Neumann, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Neumann Homes of Warrenville.
Buyer feedback and market research indicated that upper level flex space was important for families, whether it went to the children, an exercise room or home office.
Those work-at-home spots have got to be at the top of the specialty room list, according to McCloskey’s figures: 50 million houses have a home office; 77 percent of the country’s builders offer home offices as part of their home designs.
It wasn’t that long ago that laundry rooms–with their closets, cabinets, steamers, sinks, folding counters and such–were considered a luxury for the upper-income set.
Now the laundry room heads the NAHB survey’s “Top Ten Essential/Must Have Features.” Fifty-two percent of the respondents put the laundry room in first place; double-pane windows rated a mere 21 percent.
Steven Pjesky, president of Naperville-based Kensington Homes Inc., doesn’t find it at all unusual when buyers of his custom homes ($750,000 and up) want one laundry room on the sleeping level, a second in the kitchen area.
Basements
Andy and Karen Alpeter lived in Dundee for 22 years and “looked for a long, long time for the place to build the home that would have what we really wanted,” said Karen, who works alongside her husband at the packaging distribution company they own in Gilberts. Lanco Development Co. built the dream home in Boulder Ridge in Lake in the Hills that they moved into last Thanksgiving.
The basement was one area that got a lot of attention: It’s a walk-out with golf course view (and a pond with swans!) and has a family room with stone fireplace, plenty of space for recreation with pool table, jukebox, wet bar, a media room with big screen TV, an exercise room, office and full bath.
Naturally, there’s also a living level which doesn’t skimp on their wants including a gracious two-story living/family area, a formal dining room with cranberry-colored wall, plus the sleeping level with master suite and three additional bedrooms. But, for fun and games, it’s the basement.
Christopher Shaxted, executive vice president of Lakewood Homes in Hoffman Estates, says a basement doesn’t have to have some glorious trappings of the good life to make the first-time or move-up buyer happy.
“Many new single-family home buyers look at the basement as the No. 1 priority because it represents expandability,” he said. “Whether it’s for the office, rec room, workshop, not many buyers will go without a basement, no matter the price.”
But many a buyer and builder tell the House Hunter that they need a basement for “stuff”–be that a corner to stash the fishing gear or bicycles or sleds, to set up a workroom or office.
Family/Great/Living rooms
More and more owners, often young ones, are opting to choose plans or do some customizing to make the family or great or hearth room into what they’re calling “our real living room.”
Some couples, such as Miranda’s parents Jason and Kim Papes, have their formal living and dining rooms, but they also have their own play room, if you will. The Papeses expanded both the family room and the already-large kitchen and now have a spacious, casual, comfortable “place where we truly live,” according to Kim.
Coincidentally, Leslie Staverman used the phrase, “the true living area,” when she described the home she and her husband Rob are building at Lakewood Falls near Romeoville. Though they’re just in their early 30s, their new home will be their third and “by now we know exactly what we have to have,” she said. High on that list is the Lakewood Homes’ floor plan with a hearth room.
“There are lots of brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews–we usually have somebody coming to visit every two weeks and everybody congregates in one place, generally around our eight-foot table, which will be in our hearth room/kitchen,” she said.
The Stavermans also have a combined living and dining room, “but that’s for collectibles, it’s not where we’ll live.”
This couple’s modern day living room will be their hearth room–and probably their basement, as well. That’s where they’ll sets up their “sports room” and their pool table.
Master suite
McCloskey calls a master suite the “newest hot button room” adding, “for some buyers the master suite carries as much weight as the kitchen.
“They want views, doors that lead to an outdoor balcony or a patio; a fireplace, a sitting room or adjacent den with TV, audio systems, small refrigerator or microwave and definitely, a coffeemaker.”
Kensington Homes’ Pjesky says custom and semi-custom home buyers prefer a plan with a master bedroom of about 23- or 24-by-18-feet with a fireplace, volume ceiling, huge master closet, and space for either a morning bar or a sitting room.
“Furniture is getting bigger,” said the developer, “and those four-poster beds call for big bedrooms.”
Though such sitting rooms are generally associated with high-end homes, Kathy Eiben, vice president of sales and marketing for Kirk Homes, says the trend is expanding into more affordable price ranges:
“With the popularity of open floor plans, there’s an increased need for quiet corners, retreats to recover from the pressures of the day. Sitting rooms provide a great `no-kid’ zone.”
She waxes poetic, calling sitting rooms within master suites “islands of serenity where second- and third-time home buyers enjoy adult tranquility.”
Maybe.
Cindy Cook, director of sales and marketing for Chestnut Homes in Burr Ridge, asks, “Who’s got time to sit up there and read a book when you’ve got three kids running around the family room?
“First-floor sunrooms or sitting rooms are more family-oriented. They’re the place to retreat while still keeping track of everything that’s going on in the house.”
Lakewood Homes’ Shaxted said buyers looking for the best value and utilizing space in the smartest way would rather have a larger secondary bedroom, rather than devoting retreat space in the master suite.
Storage
Walk-in kitchen pantries are becoming as essential as the walk-in bedroom closet, and some survey respondents want walk-in linen closets, as well.
McCloskey says it’s not just substantial storage space that people want they days, it’s specialized storage, especially in kitchens: such extras as lined silver drawers, spice drawers, knife racks, recycling bin organizers.
At Prairie Crossing in Grayslake, butler’s pantries and extensive types of optional storage are offered, including utility closets. Walk-in kitchen pantries are so popular that three new plans will include them this fall. A built-in three-bin recycling container is a standard amenity in each kitchen.
Numerous builders talk of the increasing popularity of the three- or four-car garage –with that third or fourth bay slated for storage, no matter the number of vehicles.
But the Alpeter’s four-car garage may be the ultimate in organization: A service called the White Rabbit custom-designs specialized storage after hearing the owners’ inventory of Things to be Stored. Andy now has cabinets and racks, shelves, work space and pegboards galore for everything from tools to bicycles.
