Homebuilders survey highest since Lehman, first time buyers return. (Washington: 2009, loan)

[MoorestownResident]

MarketWatch.com Story

[CaptainNJ]

id like them to build a nice community for me. none of the current ones on newhomeguide are just right.

[tallguylehigh]

I would like to see homebuilders adapt with their future offerings.

While this is my personal preference and other opinions may differ, but I would LOVE to see homebuilders make homes smaller, and more efficient houses with nice touches of detail. The book 'Not So Big House' comes to mind. How many people use formal living rooms, how many people use formal dining rooms?

An ideal home to me is NOT a 3,500 sqft home with a 2 story living room on some farmer's recently sold back 40 without any sign of shade. I want to see communities that merge with their surroundings and offer smart living solutions that extend outside of a 0.25 acre plot. Think of things like a community garden, a community pool and sprinkle in some light commercial space (ice cream store, convenience store, etc) to keep people from hopping in their car just to go get a gallon of milk.

There are a lot of communities like this popping up across the country. I just wonder if there are enough buyers here to make such an "alternate" lifestyle worthwile.

[MoorestownResident]

They are, just maybe not in communities around you. The average square footage of new construction has fallen steadily in the past few years.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by tallguylehigh

I would like to see homebuilders adapt with their future offerings.

While this is my personal preference and other opinions may differ, but I would LOVE to see homebuilders make homes smaller, and more efficient houses with nice touches of detail. The book 'Not So Big House' comes to mind. How many people use formal living rooms, how many people use formal dining rooms?

An ideal home to me is NOT a 3,500 sqft home with a 2 story living room on some farmer's recently sold back 40 without any sign of shade. I want to see communities that merge with their surroundings and offer smart living solutions that extend outside of a 0.25 acre plot. Think of things like a community garden, a community pool and sprinkle in some light commercial space (ice cream store, convenience store, etc) to keep people from hopping in their car just to go get a gallon of milk.

There are a lot of communities like this popping up across the country. I just wonder if there are enough buyers here to make such an "alternate" lifestyle worthwile.

The challenge, especially in NJ, will be making the land affordable. One of the things that drives builders there to build such large homes is the fact that you can't pay $150k for a 50'x100' lot if you're trying to build a 1,000sf house on it- to cover the land cost, you've got to throw 3,000sf up, or the cost/sf is too high to get the loan to work.

I too like some of the stuff in Not So Big, though some of the homes in there are pretty big in their own right. One of the best examples is the stuff that Ross Chapin and The Cottage Company are doing up in Washington State- the only oddity is that their costs are extremely high as well- there are people paying $600k to buy a 950sf cottage in one of their developments. Not exactly what I'd call "affordable housing".

We've got a downtown revelopment project getting fired up in my new hometown here in GA, and it's got a residential component to it that's hopefully going to incorporate some of the principles from those developments. There's already plenty of McMansion-esque development down here, so we're looking to do something different.