Will the recession redesign the American home?

With the Seattle PI up for sale and Boeing announcing substantial layoffs, the Pacific Northwest can no longer claim it's in a protected bubble from the national downturn. In fact, Seattle real estate has been pretty quiet since September.

Our nation's history might suggest that our current economic downturn will our tastes for certain homes. In the years following WWII, soldiers arrived home ready to settle down as home owners but still remembered lessons learned from the Great Depression. Americans as a whole did not want to over-extend themselves but large numbers of people wanted to buy real estate. Therefore, small and inexpensive tract housing of the 1940s and 50s was born.

Flash forward to the late 1990s and early 2000s when "McMansions" were all the rage. However, our current recession combined with many Americans environmental sensitivity and their appetite for sustainability...the future homes in America might see yet another transformation.

Already, homes in Seattle are trending towards smaller, environmentally friendly and attached. Seattle townhomes are woven into the old in-city neighborhoods as city leadership looks to add urban density to account for future growth. Green building in Seattle is already prevalent and our region will continue to support this type of construction. The city of Seattle has very little land available for development, so the city might not always mirror the rest of the country in regards to housing styles. But be certain that home buyers in Seattle will begin to gravitate towards small and sustainable.

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