Forget the Open Floor Plan--It's Time to Bring Back Walls

The Home Depot’s stock shares fell 3% on Tuesday of last week after the company reported a miss in its earnings report and forecast a slowdown in sales over the rest of the year. The retailer’s stock prices had risen by 50% over the past three years as the housing market surged. Experts say that Home Depot’s performance miss can be attributed to the cooling market and slowdown in new home construction. New Census and HUD data shows that residential construction fell to a two-year low in December 2018, down 10.9% from one year ago. "Home Depot sales are definitely a sign of where the housing market is going in the next one to two quarters, since this is one of the places where developers get their steel and other materials for single-family homes," said Jason Haber, an agent at Warburg Realty in  New York . "The earliest sign that you see is of less home building — new developers see if there is less demand in new housing. If demands for new housing are slipping, tha...

4Q'18 Overview Fewer first-time home buyers amid housing slowdown:  480,000 single-family homes were purchased—a decline of 3% from a year ago, compared to a 1% increase in Q3; The first-time home buyer market was more resilient during the housing slowdown compared to repeat buyers, which saw a decline of 7% Larger Share:  First-time home buyers accounted for 39% of single-family homes sold in 2018, up from 31% in 2014; 56% of new purchase loans in 2018, up from 52% in 2014; Highest level of first-time home buyer mix in the housing market since 2000 Diverging Trends Across States Continue:  The slowdown in Q4 is reflected by a large increase of states reporting lower numbers of home buyers: 19 states in Q3 compared to 35 in Q4 Affordability Continued to Deteriorate:  Housing affordability deteriorated by 17% in Q4 from a year ago, due to rising interest rates and higher home values Slowdown Intensified:  Home buyers have reacted to the worsening affordabi...

As the electric car market grows —  sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. increased 81% from 2017 to 2018  — car chargers are the latest must-haves for new luxury developments. 220-volt outlets can charge a Tesla — a showroom opened in East Hampton in 2016 — Audi, BMW or Mercedes in about eight hours or less, compared to 24 hours for a standard 110-volt outlet. The garage at San Francisco's Residence 950 comes equipped with a pre-installed car charger and is wired for additional smart-car chargers. PAUL DYER Out in San Francisco, which is no stranger to green living, the LEED Platinum-certified  Residence 950  by developer Troon Pacific comes equipped with branded Tesla charger and is also pre-wired for additional smart-car chargers in the four-car garage. The 9,500-square-foot home by developer Troon Pacific is asking $45 million. “In the Bay area, we have the  highest electric car use in the country ,” says listing agent Val Steele of Co...

Realtor.com ® 's  February housing report released  Wednesday shows 2019 may have one of the coolest spring home buying seasons in recent years as growing inventories drive price cuts. This marks a significant reversal from a year ago when the housing market struggled with 41 straight months of inventory declines. In February, the median list price increased 7% year-over-year, to $294,800. Approximately 73,000 additional listings are for-sale this year versus last year, increasing national inventory by 6% year-over-year. Much of this available inventory can be traced to the nation's 50 largest metros, where inventory increased by 11% year-over-year. The largest jumps have continued on the West Coast, led by  San Jose , Calif., with a massive 125% increase. This was followed by an 85% increase in Seattle, 53% increase in  San Francisco , 39% increase in  San Diego , and 36% increase in  Portland , Ore. A recent rise in the share of price cuts also hi...

Recent U.S. Population Survey projections indicate that by 2030, the number of people older than 65 years old will exceed the number of people younger than 18. This will likely cause ripple effects that impact interior and home design,  Forbes  reports. The  American Society of Interior Designers  (ASID) released its 2019 Outlook and State of Interior Design, and Megy Karydes reports how many of the key takeaways relate to how an aging population will impact the built environment moving forward. Interior designers and architects will be finding themselves with more projects that focus on how to help seniors either age in place or remodel spaces in homes to accommodate an elder family member who is moving in, either temporarily or permanently. Among the trends highlighted in the ASID Outlook report is the “traditional family household model is being replaced by more fluid, variable configurations based on lifestyle and social identity.” Such morphing of lifestyle...

According to ATTOM Data Solutions’ January 2019 foreclosure activity data, Cook County,  Illinois , located in the  Chicago  metropolitan area, had the highest number of foreclosure starts of any county with a population of over 100,000. A total of 800 properties started the foreclosure process in Cook County last month. Harris County, located in the  Houston  metro, comes in second nationwide at 569 foreclosure starts in January 2019. Maricopa County,  Arizona  is in third with 479 foreclosure starts, Los Angeles,  California  in fourth with 434, and Suffolk County,  New York  in fifth with 346. (ATTOM defines a foreclosure start as a first public notice, which can be a notice of default, a lis pendens, or a notice of trustee sale.) Just last month ATTOM Data released its year-end foreclosure report, which helped show the decline in foreclosure starts for the nation, year-over-year. While some states experienced an uptick in f...

For the third year in a row, new homes are shrinking. But at almost 2,600 square feet, the average new home built in America is still far from a tiny house. Most potential homebuyers say that they want a property smaller than the typical single-family house builders started in 2018. So what gives? Builders are starting smaller houses to try and reduce purchase prices, said Rose Quint, a top researcher with the National Association of Home Builders. "Homes have been downsizing in the past three years," Quint said this week at the building industry's annual conference in  Las Vegas . "This paints a picture of homebuilders trying to respond to the housing affordability crisis we have in the country.