One reason for weakness: many young people, saddled with student loan debt, elevated unemployment and less-than-perfect credit scores, are staying out of the market. — NPR
New research from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, focuses in on the role of millennial generation in driving demand and shaping recovery.
As Gregory Walker noted recently, in broad terms, looking at US economy, it is clear we're not really 'there' yet. Remember, the last reported ABI reverted into negative territory. This despite the fact that "Architecture firms with a residential specialization continued to report extremely strong billings in May".
Back in April, Neil Irwin of the NYT, dug into the numbers, for what is holding housing back. Though there was an initial post-recession glut, demand is now the issue. If only, because much of the demand that is there now, is for rental multifamily properties. This shift to non-single family homes, by millennials is he argues generating "less spillover benefits for the broader economy".
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Maybe the "buyers aren't there" because Millennials don't want to buy shoddily-built cookie-cutter suburban houses? Assuming the picture accompanying this article is the one aimed at Millennials, those houses and that development look horrid.
also they're expecting kids to buy $300,000 starter homes?
Kids in a crap economy, tapped out on student loans, whose parents retirement accounts have been stolen, etc., etc. Tough to come up with a 60k down payment when you're flipping burgers at McD's.
In other words, it’s great that the Daleville Town Center is finally starting to fill up with residents. But because each apartment is less expensive to build than a stand-alone house, the impact on the Roanoke regional economy is less than you might expect.
this makes absolutely no sense - the town can collect more taxes on the property than they would with a bunch of stand-alone single families - plus they created a bunch of permanent jobs and higher demand for other commercial services in the town center. equating this with a slightly lower number of short-term construction jobs is ridiculous.
Burger Flipping? Tougher still when you're rockin' the ol' unpaid internship.
In the other discussion there's the internship that doesn't pay anything but offers housing (Japan perhaps?). When I read that, I thought of The Jerk when Navin gets to live in the back of Jackie Mason's gas station. Which gave me some consolation really. We're all only one Opti-Grab away from being home owners.
But remember, this is a """Recovery"""TM(R)(C) and everything is JUST FINE COMRADE.
And Eastasia has always been at war with Oceania.
This is a great trend - except for the kids being stiffled by debt. We sure don't need anymore quarter million shacks built on what land is left. The crap residential cookie cutter market barely needs architects anyway, so I cant imagine this hurts architects too much. Nyc condo and coop boards require professionals, a 3k wall will cost you 10k in paperwork and fees, this is actually rather good for us if people choose urban over suburban... Kids that either spend more time with their family or closer to each other in an urban setting can only be a good thing - remember your lewis mumford - if it wasn't for containing people in a dense area we wouldn't have culture. Towns should figure a better tax base, if you overbuild and the economy then tanks what are you left with but vacant lots and over taxed and under valued property and a bunch of out of work public officials. A virus is never healthy.
Do you have any idea how much a NYC condo costs? Millennials are not buying condos in downtown areas they are renting cheap crap apartments that are about the same quality as kb homes. They are throwing money away by renting because they can't get approved for home loans. Renting is what I would expect architects to encourage since they are the worst business minded people on earth. Buying a home be it a Sfr or a condo/townhome is still a good investment. Architects focused on building NYC condos will not solve anything. It's tantamount to claiming that a green roof on a library will solve global warming. What we need is small well designed homes specifically town homes and row houses built in cheap areas. Most millennials in my neck of the woods opt to buy small mid century modern homes and renovate. These houses can be picked up for 120k meaning that a mortgage will be around 800$ a month. This is the price range and size that appeals to young people.
There are kids buying condos in nyc they just didn't study architecture, but that's not the point. If ownership is the goal it didn't work out too well for recent home buyers including myself. Jla-x : architects have no involvement in the market being talked about here and have little to no influence. ..nevermind there is no route to having influence. I think be both agree on the problem of licensure and business but in short don't count on architects influencing this market with well designed homes etc...if there is no money in this market for people with money then just maybe we will get a market that is good for everyone.
They're tearing down houses in Detroit. Perfectly good houses that people could easily live in.
"The crap residential cookie cutter market barely needs architects anyway, so I cant imagine this hurts architects too much"
There's a need for architects precisely becasue it's a "crap" residential market. This requires a paradigm shift in how most architects are educated. Too many of our institutions ignore this huge part of the build environment, yet if it's historic, they have no problem heaping praise on some builder's "vernacular". Architect's hurt themselves when they dismiss a huge portion of the building industry.
"architects have no involvement in the market being talked about here and have little to no influence. ..nevermind there is no route to having influence."
Chris, there is infact a route to having influence if young architects are taught to take the market on its own terms. That's the route. As for where the market is going to grow most, urban or suburban, I think's better to frame it as transit/pedestrian oriented vs. automibile oriented development. This is where the profession could exert the most influence, should it want to.
Either way, I agree with Donna. The average suburb dosen't have a long shelf life, and it's respective commercial districts even less. Much of it is disposable architecture at its worst.
I am a bit of a pessimist thayer d. Academia is in convulsions with regard to its detachment from society and just maybe one of us becomes a politician. ..all small chances. I also think we have to go more bauhaus... I read the columbia gsapp student journal recently and the only thing that struck me was Wigley s account on why the architecture school tried so hard to justify itself to the university (general, not just columbia) thru various philosophical routes.. in short I don think what we do needs a collegiate degree. Why cant we be independent of both trades and universities? Why do we need to associate?
miles - Detroit has absurdly high property taxes AND they charge income tax. property taxes are something like $6,000 a year on a $100k property.
This is the problem with living in low-density sprawl - high property taxes.
And they just cut health and retirement benefits for retired civil servants. The entire system is broken unless you are at the top.
Detroit would be a terrific place to revitalize as a self-sufficient community but that would undermine the capitalist ideals being enforced in the U$.
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