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

read more…

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

read more…

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

read more…

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

read more…

Imagine if half of all your employees suddenly couldn’t afford to live conveniently near your workplace? Many of them would leave rather than spend two hours of their daily lives in traffic or transit. Of course you’d replace them, but you wouldn’t be attracting the same level of talent, then naturally, your customers would gradually realize the same.

Thus local businesses today are advocating for more ‘workforce housing’ - housing that is attainable to working families earning between

read more…

There is not a desirable city that exists that doesn’t have a lack of attainably-priced housing, and it’s been covered pretty extensively. Smaller homes have been one of the most logical answers, and developers are starting to agree to the point investors have termed the smallest end of these offerings…

Microhousing is defined as very small one-two bedroom units, 300 to 500 square feet, with an emphasis on shared amenities like fitness facilities, party rooms with kitchens, libraries, laundry

read more…

That’s ‘ugly’ in terms of design and craftsmanship, not so much style, which I’m sure many of you may be partial to.

When nonprofit developer Mercy Housing completed its 96-unit SRO (single-room occupancy) building for very low income residents in the Near North neighborhood of Chicago, president Richard Banks reiterated the group’s vision that the building would be “a statement that affordable housing doesn’t have to be ugly or look like a warehouse.“

Essentially, if very low income

read more…

“Have you explored how beta communities would incorporate affordable housing and/or economic integration aspects, or is that not at all a focus?“

The CoolTown beta community program starts with identifying the most progressive, creative, entrepreneurial, triple bottom line individuals in the neighborhood. That typically means housing that is affordable is extremely important to their well being since their jobs aren’t focused on maximizing their income, or are just starting to grow their

read more…

Nowadays, one affordable housing strategy isn’t enough to make a difference. You need several all at once, and the Urban Land Institute illustrates just that in their article, Housing the Masses. Here are some of the programs that need to be combined:

Inclusionary zoning - This is esssentially an affordable housing requirement as a % of total units, often 15%-20%. San Diego, Tallahassee, Palm Beach, and Key West, Florida, have recently passed such ordinances. L.A. requires 20% of housing in

read more…

Land trusts, like the Trust for Public Land, are widely known for purchasing and permanently conserving parks and natural lands. Now a new form of land trust, such as one created by the California Community Foundation in 2003, are preserving land for housing affordability. Partnered with private sector developers that specialize in workforce housing**, building costs are lowered by 30 to 50 percent. In exchange for being able to buy a home below market value, the owner agrees to sell the home

read more…

Does this sound familiar?  “I (or we) would love to buy a condo, but they’re too expensive where I want to live and I don’t want to go the housemate route to help pay the mortgage.“  Or how about this, “I’d really like to live in this neighborhood for at least a couple of years and would love to rent out a contemporary not-so-big efficiency to be able to afford it, but they simply don’t exist.“

Well, both those prayers are about to be answered with what is being referred to as Mortgage

read more…

By 2010, 50% of all new homes will be built by just 10 national homebuilders, up from 36% today, say industry analysts (that’s a lot of influence). Why? As reported a few entries ago, most of our investment capital is held in large, corporate entities that only invest in other large corporate entities. Accepting this trend, there are two paths to steering this capital toward the readers of this site seeking urban, affordable, creative, unique, social, pedestrian-oriented places to

read more…

If it doesn’t have walkable urban neighborhoods, it could very well be.  Based on a recent study, A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Families by the Center for Housing Policy, in many ways for creatives, living in an auto-oriented small town is less affordable than subsisting in Manhattan.

The study covered low- to moderate-income (ie including artists, musicians, entrepreneurs just starting out) working families (married with and without children, single

read more…

Continuing yesterday’s entry… The Last Stand of the 6-Percenters - that’s the NY Times story that’s got home buyers excited and realtors needing to rethink their business model.  The current system awards 3% to the seller’s agent, and 3% to the buyer’s agent.  Louisville is pioneering a better model with its beta community.

“Traditional agents spend very little time brokering a deal. Most of their time is consumed looking for new clients, which is of no benefit to consumers,“ states a

read more…

‘DIY’ - Do it yourself.  This is not DIY in terms of becoming a home builder, but using skills that have come to bear naturally by the internet generation.  Ordering exactly what you want also saves the company significantly (and I mean significantly) because it eliminate inventory, risk and interest - just ask Dell Computer, or any business school teacher.  Then there’s that one little thing called customer satisfaction, as this one reader puts it, “Why is it that I can customize a $10,000

read more…

Sometimes brands become so associated with their past that there futures are limited by it, such as Polaroid and Kodak, which have long been synonymous with instant pictures and film processing. Both have quickly become obsolete in the digital transition.  Brand experts often suggest starting with a new name altogether.  Affordable housing is one of those.

The term affordable housing has come to be associated with government-subsidized or low-income housing.  Why?  Simply put, the average

read more…

If you want a model example of how to blend a new building in with a landmark house (1907) in a historic (and very fun) neighborhood (Capitol Hill, Seattle), be affordable, transit-oriented and a green building as well, then the Pantages Apartments are a good place to start.  It’s featured in the American Institute for Architects’ new Affordable Housing Design Advisor website.

49 dwellings (45 in the new building, 4 in the historic home) are available as studio, one, two or three bedrooms,

read more…

Yes, this is affordable housing!  It’s one development that visually stood out from the Smart Growth Illustrated set of case studies highlighted yesterday.

In Aspen, Colorado, the wealthy bid up the prices of homes in the city (average home price of $1.7 million - that’s not a typo!), resulting in traffic jams and air pollution from the commuting employees who couldn’t afford to live there.  It’s so bad that it’s nationally known as the Aspen effect.

The developer, Curtis/Affordable Housing

read more…

The average area of living space per occupant in the U.S. was 290 s.f. in 1950, 446 s.f. in 1970, 800 s.f. in the 90s, to a whopping 939 s.f. today.  However, according to the Wall Street Journal, that trend may have hit its peak:

“The golden age of McMansions may be coming to an end. These oversized homes - characterized by sprawling layouts on small lots, and built in cookie-cutter style by big developers - fueled much of the housing boom. But thanks to rising energy and mortgage costs,

read more…

Necessary for cities to grow.

Let’s put it this way… Say there are 100 people who want to live in a new town by the river.  90 of them want to live on the 10 acre ‘downtown’ next to the river, while only 10 of them want to live on the surrounding land.  However, the ‘town builder’ never bothers to ask people want they want, and instead builds only 10 big homes on the 10 acre downtown area, with 90 homes around it.  Of course, the scarce ten downtown homes sell for huge sums of money because

read more…

It’s the same old story - creatives would kill to buy a home downtown, but they’re simply too expensive, so they end up in a less desirable location on the outskirts while all the lawyers and executives move in instead.

Enter the ipad (though the name may have been challenged by Apple), pioneered in the UK by Barratt Homes, and packing a whole lot of value in a tiny package, get it?

Granted, the ipad isn’t the solution for most of the creative class, but if you’re looking to own a cool

read more…

It’s the toughest question to answer in urban development, and the Urban Land Institute, a Washington DC real estate development educational nonprofit, brought together a group of practitioners who have invested in solutions, summarized in Urban Land Magazine.

Two key points:

- Mixed-income housing is unanimously the best approach to providing attainable housing.  The most reliable rent-payers in some developments?... those in the lowest income categories vs. market-rate residents.  For

read more…

Have you ever wondered in which city downtowns you could actually afford to buy a home in, yet still enjoy some semblance of active urban life and entertainment?  Rich Karlgaard, author of 2004’s Life 2.0: How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness has done some research for you, “Bohemian Bargains are core cities in the 150,000 to 750,000 population range with lively downtowns and a reasonable cost of living.“  My brief comments follow each

read more…

It looks like the American Dream my be redefining itself, or maybe the image of the single-family house with the backyard and white picket fence never really was more than a huge campaign by GM and home builders to sell more of their product to the masses.  It worked, but it’s weakening now.  Coincidence that so are GM and mall developers?

Census studies show that major metropolitan areas are losing population, and since the same studies show downtowns are increasing in population, it

read more…

How can one afford own their own home and live in the most desirable neighborhood (ie expensive) without making anywhere near the requisite $100K/year?

Young architect Marianne Cusato is making waves with her Katrina Cottage.

Key statistics:
Size:  308 s.f.
Price:  Less than $30,000.

Granted, this is for housing in Katrina-ravaged neighborhoods, but what’s interesting is that once people experience the home ‘in person’, they found it a lot more appealing than they’d expect…

“As soon as the

read more…