Can you say $675 a month to rent your very own newly renovated residence in an up-and-coming neighborhood within a vibrant city? That’s affordable to someone with a $25,000/year salary.

Mini-condos on the rise in walkable urban areas, and developers in Vancouver, Canada agree, announcing thirty 270 s.f. units to be completed in March 2011.

Apparently having City support for mini-residences is a new thing, “We took a position against these kinds of units 20 years ago, but times have changed.

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For emerging generations, ‘quality of life’ does not mean quantity of life, as “more evidence that ‘not so big homes’ are in” provides evidence for. People are increasingly favoring giving up square footage in exchange for having the freedom to live in whatever neighborhood they choose, like being closer to work, closer to friends, closer to, well, having a life. You can buy space, but you can’t buy time.

Even the Urban Land Institute, the leading organization for real estate developers

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Washington DC developer Jair Lynch has a unique live-work space in their new Solea mixed-use project, but hasn’t quite figured out how to market the 1600 s.f. live-work spaces on its ground floor. With 800 s.f. of retail space on the ground floor, and an open stairway down to 800 s.f. of living space with kitchen and washer/dryer below, it’s not for the everyday buyer. So, they decided to crowdsourcing what it could be.

“Crowdsourcing means we are opening it up to the creative people in

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Sometimes a higher calling means living in a home one could actually afford, depending on location of course. That’s the case at Francis Street Lofts in Charleston, South Carolina, where a former church built in 1937 (serving as a costume shop in the 1990s) now provides homes for young professionals.

The renovated building consists of twelve one-bedroom units ranging from 621 s.f. to 930 s.f., priced between $170,000 and $250,000.  Smaller units are what creatives are looking for in a down

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Crowdsourcing is often used as a tool to prove there’s a market in order to attract the capital needed to execute the project. However, while participants may not have as much input in a place that already has the capital secured, the fact that the project is indeed going to be implemented one way or another is highly motivating.

Once such development is a redevelopment of an existing building into 16 condos, starting under $200K, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood in the heart of

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As many now know, housing sizes have peaked, and articles like USA Today’s Americans are moving on up to smaller, smarter homes are communicating a new American Dream that small is in. Listen to what people are saying,

“There’s a shift in the culture. Build what you need. Build what inspires you. Don’t build to impress your neighbors. I don’t feel we need more space. If designed right, less space can work well. There are lots of things that can be done without spending a lot of money,“

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For a simple look at one reason why U.S. residents are having a harder time buying a home each year, or why the housing bubble burst (or the realization that there even was a housing bubble), take a look at the chart above.

From the U.S. Census, the numbers below state the year, average household size, average new single-family home size (s.f.), and single-family home s.f. per occupant (charted above).

1950 - 3.38 persons - 983 s.f. - 291 s.f.
1970 - 3.11 persons - 1500 s.f. - 482 s.f. …

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There seems to be some fairly strong evidence that the price of an average home is higher than what the average person can afford. However, this isn’t the case around Toronto, Canada if you’re buying a home from Options for Homes, a nonprofit that’s already built 1500 attainably-priced homes for people with household salaries as low as $32,000… without government subsidy.

How are they doing it?

Lowering the cost of land - Options for Homes may spend $10,000 per unit on land otherwise costing

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It’s not easy to resist gentrification, but at least the City of Boston is trying via their Artist Space Initiative within their economic development agency.

Their mission is to develop spaces that:
- are permanently dedicated to artists through deed restrictions;
- are located in buffer zones between industrial and residential neighborhoods in locations that do not support traditional family housing;
- offer live/work spaces or work-only spaces for rent and for purchase at a variety of

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You live in a studio, but you wish you had a dining center, a guest room, a master bedroom, an entertainment room… How about a home spa, bar or lounge while you’re at it?

If you’re Gary Chang, you can experience all of the above in his flexible, convertible 344 s.f. Hong Kong apartment. Known as the Domestic Transformer - inspired by the morphing toy robots - the not so big unit features accordion walls, moving wall units (suspended from steel tracks in the ceiling), fold-down tables and

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If there’s one thing I’m glad to see, it’s not just nonprofits or membership groups working with for-profits to execute their vision, but green organizations working with developers to build attainably-priced green housing.

It started with Live Green, a green-oriented membership organization based on providing green business discounts to its members, and Taurus Development Group, a woman-run real estate development firm with a twenty-year ecological track record. Both of these entities,

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That’s the headline for a recent USA Today article, as developers go smaller in response to emerging generations of buyers who have a fresher vision of the American Dream than previous ones. “The trend is here to stay”, says Michael Newman, president and CEO of Golub & Co., an international real estate development and investment firm. “In this economy, people still want to be in cool places, and they’ll trade down size for location.“

Ho do developers compensate for less living area? Open

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For many, the image that first pops into people’s heads who have heard of cohousing is one of boomer hippies sharing communal meals every Sunday in their housing complex. The thing is, it’s a fairly accurate assessment for many of the only 110 cohousing projects in the U.S., and while it’s far from desirable for most people, there are some good lessons from its creation process, which is very relatable to crowdsourced placemaking. Here’s one Brooklyn story:

When a plan to build 40

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While we may be familiar with city policies promoting car-free living, what are the examples in the built world?

That’s where you need to visit the Moda condominiums in the Belltown district of Seattle, Washington. Moda is a model application of truly attainably-priced housing via reducing housing size and eliminating parking spaces. The evidence:

- 83 units have no parking at all, which are $30,000 less than those with parking.
- The units start at $149,950, almost a third of the median

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It’s that time of year again, to profile the apartments that best invigorate their homes through color, in Apartment Therapy’s annual Fall Colors Contest.

Shown here are the ‘Final Four‘ contestants, using kitchens for comparison. Here’s the inspiration and color tips from each of them:

The East (top image) - “After living with white walls for one year we painted a bedroom wall red and quickly realized the rest of the house needed color. Don’t be afraid to use bold colors that make a

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There’s an emerging market for green housing and transportation, and in the Bay Area, California, both the private and public sectors are taking leads to accommodate them.

At The Uptown apartments in Oakland, developer Forest City Enterprises offers home buyers free annual membership ($25) to the car-sharing service Zipcar, free annual public transit passes and access to bikes. Developer Rick Holliday offers a free bike with every unit at his Pacific Cannery Lofts development, plus a bike

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One of the most frequently asked questions I receive is related to readers seeking to buy homes that fit the vibe of what this site is all about. For years, I really had no answer for them. Finally, Brent Roberts, who worked for one of the most innovative, creative developers in the world, Streuver Brothers (see triple bottom line industrial loft redevelopments here and here), decided to strike out on his own and suggested providing that very service.

Long story short, Brent committed to the

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You may be noticing a lot of bicycle posts lately, reflecting a trend of low cost, low energy, low maintenance transportation as gas prices have reached a new plateau. The same is happening for housing, as cities and developers partner to build homes at price points (and thus sizes) that those in the workforce (ie from teachers to police officers) can actually afford.

San Francisco leads the way in this regard, first with attainably-priced Cubix Yerba Buena and its efficiencies, and now a

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Perhaps too many people buying homes they couldn’t afford wasn’t the problem behind the Wall Street collapse, but a symptom. The real problem may be that there are too many homes out on the market that people could never afford in the first place. In other words, the average U.S. American can’t afford $300,000 for a home, as is the going rate in many cities. So rather than lend out more money to buy homes people can’t afford, that banks can’t back, perhaps the real solution is addressing the

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Following the announcement of a green home crowdsourcing program in July 2008, Taurus Enterprise Group, led by president Gail Montplaisir, has agreed to see if the building pictured above can be redeveloped and crowdsourced into green condos that creatives can truly afford. We’re not talking about ‘affordability’ in quotations, we’re talking about what first-time home buyers, those with average salaries or even recent graduates can literally afford to pay a month in order to buy their own

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The median home price in San Francisco is $749,000, so being able to buy anything new at a third of that price is noteworthy, especially if it’s in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city.

Enter Cubix Yerba Buena in SoMa (South of Market), an eight-story building of 98 condos starting at $279,000. The key to affordability is not in government subsidies, but in size - each of the condominiums range from 250 to 350 s.f. It’s the U.S. version of the UK’s iPad, or the housing version

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Buying an attainably-priced green home is a no brainer for most creatives given the option, however finding one is comparable to a needle in a haystack. So, in the District of Columbia the GreenHomes DC program is launching an opportunity for prospective home buyers (and renters) to crowdsource their own affordable green place to live.

In partnership with a sponsoring developer per specific project, GreenHomes DC is a joint venture between Green DC Realty and CoolTown Beta Communities. 

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Not to be outdone by the smallest coolest apartments in the U.S. brought to you by Apartment Therapy, here are the international winners:

First place (topmost image) - Nicolas’ Mini Loft, Lille, France, 630 s.f. “I keep things that are useful or important to me, and get rid of the rest : no extra room to accumulate! You feel lighter when you don’t own too much stuff!...“

Second place - Aad’s Compact Dwelling (Suitable for Laziness), Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 624 s.f. “This particular

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It’s that time of year again to check out the winners of Apartment Therapy’s Small Cool 2008 contest to discover the smallest (under 850 s.f.), coolest apartments in the U.S.

First place (topmost image) - Tony and Hilary’s 3 in 1 Studio, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY, 460 s.f. “Living here as a couple with a cat, we have enough space to store everything we need without sacrificing comfort.“

Second place - Jordan’s Ordo Ab Chao, Los Angeles, CA, 412 s.f. apartment rental. Note the office nook in

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We hear a lot of buzz about the popularity of people working at home, but how prevalent is it?  Here’s a snapshot via answering a few questions:

How many U.S. Americans are working at home? 28 million at least part time in 2006.
Is that number growing? That’s a 10% increase from the previous year and a 40% increase from 2002.
Do U.S. Americans have home offices?  7 out of 10 have offices or designated work stations, a 112% increases since 2000.
How important are home offices in new homes? 

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