Future Perfect Tense
Today, so few people are buying new homes for reasons other than that they’re not happy with them that it’s hard to learn what they’d want if those reasons for not buying suddenly disappeared.
Home builders are in limbo while forces they can’t control–a home price correction, a credit dislocation, a global recession–play out. But limbo is not what it used to be. It’s not a place for simply waiting passively while the wheels of the downward cycle grind slowly forward.
Some home builders are trying to see around the corner at what home buyers will want once glimpses of normalization return. Big Builder editor Sarah Yaussi has been featuring the work of such builders in her blogs of late, focusing on those who are looking to differentiate their home products from competitors so that once home buyers return, they’ll find what they want differs from the rest.
Last week, Sarah featured new home designs from Weyerhaeuser’s DC-metro area home building operation Winchester Homes, which has melded age-in-place universal design features together with energy efficiency home designs in its “Your Home Your Way” program. HousingCrisis linked video and a slideshow feature to accompany the analysis in the blog. Here’s the link.
In our next example, Yaussi’s lens turns toward energy efficiency the high production home builder way, as its being executed by Hovnanian Enterprises. She travels to Hovnanian’s Eagles Pointe community in Prince William County, Va., where there’s a work-in-progress showhome/showcase/museum of high-level energy efficient home building practices.
Rather than to typify the floor plans and merchandising prospective home buyers would see in a conventional model home, Hovnanian’s demonstration home is intented to give prospects a look inside the process and results of energy-efficiency built from the inside out for each home.
Yaussi’s blog’s promise is this:
Chip Merlin, the Landover Group’s vice president of operations, and Chris Payne, the group’s purchasing manager, were our acting tour guides.
According to Merlin, the demo home will be a museum of sorts. Visitors will be able to see how different products and systems work together to improve the energy efficiency of the home. It will also serve as a test bed for new technologies, providing the builder with information and insight about what works, what doesn’t. By getting to work with the technology in production setting, the builder finds out what products and processes could be imported over as a best practice in a traditional production building environment.
Big Builder toured the home right as the drywall was being installed. While we missed out on all the cool educational displays that will pepper the home once it’s finished, seeing the home mid-construction allowed us to literally get behind the walls to see the technologies at work. You can follow Big Builder’s footsteps with a two-minute slideshow. Just click here or on the picture above to get access. Be sure to roll your mouse arrow over the photo to see the photo caption or turn your computer speakers on for audio commentary.
Here below is a candid 1-minute plus soundbite from Chip Merlin on Hovnanian’s rationale behind the Building America program and the opportunities to work with the Department of Energy.
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