I think it is an article targeted specifically to the home building industry....how to get a foothold in this emerging market before the competition does. Nothing they said about what that generation wants to buy surprised me. I will say, though, that once this generation has children, there are some things that families need in a home that are universal over the generations.

"A little R&D now can give you a jump start on the $1.6 trillion cash flow that's coming in three years."

What b.s. Millennials have big college debts and big job insecurity.

So Millennials want a smaller home, with multifunctional features and no formal LR & DR, easy to cool & heat, and indoor/outdoor living, in a first or second ring suburb. In other words, this will be back in style:

Going back to 8' ceilings!

Auntjen: And lose their ESPN privileges. Next to "Cali" it's one of the most irritating terms ever.

awm03 - that's the type of house I want, and I'm a boomer! LOL!

Not the 8 foot ceilings!!

I've come to like 8 foot ceilings. For smaller rooms, it's a nice height. Pamghatten, I've always wanted a golden brick house -- must be a boomer thing!

I'm 69. I want this house.

http://www.ourvictorianhouse.com/FinalLook.htm

Awm-I'd take it! But with vaulted ceilings :)

I have a golden brick house!

There's nothing wrong with 8 foot ceilings and the heating/cooling efficiencies they provide. I don't think there's anything wrong with a movement back to smaller homes either. That said, I found the article kind of unreadable.

I live in the Bay Area and think it's funny when people refer to houses over 2000 square feet as small. But a lot of what they said about flexible rooms and no separate formal living room seems like what most home buyers are looking for now, regardless of age. Doesn't it?

(I'm way older than gen y.)

Robo, you may have my vaulted ceilings! I hate them. Never, ever again.

Donna

My children are in that age range, and I did not see anything odd about the article. The "smaller" 2k+ home seems off, but like crl_, I'm in CA, so our version of small is different from other parts of the country.

Oh, and the college debt thing doesn't apply to my children. They have not had to borrow money for their education. I, however, still owe 40K on mine.

Yeah. That Victorian is probably my dream home.

And there isn't anything wrong with 8 foot ceilings but they do make me feel claustrophobic. We have 91/2 foot and that is nice and airy feeling but keeps heating/cooling costs down.

This is basically my dream home. Stupid "energy efficiency" and "living in Canada" and "snow loads."

My house is 1250 sq.ft. but it has 9 ft. ceilings and vaulted in the LR and the MBR. It goes a long way to adding a spacious, airy feel to a small footprint. And my heating costs (Bay Area) would make cold climate people envious.

Robo, a good friend of mine lives in an Eichler. It's not really my favorite style, but I could live happily in one with the wood painted white.

I don't know if the article makes sense for Millennials, but it made sense to me. Except for the suburb thing.

I grew up in a house that only had 7 ft ceilings. The "dining room" would barely qualify as a breakfast nook by modern standards. I have never lived in a home with separate family and dining rooms. Mostly, I have lived in places with only one bathroom (I spent a couple years in an apartment w/ 1.5 bathrooms. Actually, now that I think about it, the house I grew up in didn't have a tub, only a shower, so I think it only qualified as a 3/4 bath.

It's fine to want more. But you don't NEED all the stuff that HGTV tells you you need.

I have to say... The biggest luxury that would stay on my list is at least 2 bathrooms. I treasure alone time in the bathroom!

No more high ceilings again here either. Next house will be an older ranch and hopefully no vaulted or cathedral ceilings.

Robo, you could always move to Florida...no snow loads here. :)

I've never had separate living and family rooms, either. Most folks I know who do have a "formal" living room that no one is allowed to go into. LOL I could never see the point in having a room you don't use.

We rarely used our dining room so a few years ago my quilting machine and frame took it over. I still call it the dining room but DH always calls it the quilting room now.

Donna

I don't see anything wrong with 8' ceilings either; I certainly enjoy the monthly savings in utilities with them. I think when we compared utility costs with a family member who has a similar size/type house only with vaulted ceilings, we were paying about a third of what they were paying for gas and electricity.

Msmeow, like many winter weary Canadians, we vacation in Sarasota... And boy do I love the Sarasota School of MCM architecture!!

Since hot air rises, are vaulted ceilings a problem in warm climates? I live in a place where a/c is still rare and we just worry about heating instead of cooling.

I don't live in a warm climate, and maybe this isn't typical. But our vaulted family room was really hot in summer. The sun would beat down on the roof, and since there is no attic space to act as a buffer, the heat would transfer into the room. Plus the extra air space inherent to vaulted ceilings was tough to air condition unless the a.c. was on "Blast" mode. In winter, the room was uncomfortably cold unless we had a fire going.

Our summer project was redoing the family room. We insulated it top to bottom.

In my area, there are a lot of homes built in the 50's with 7 1/2 footceilings, and I've found adding skylights offers some relief. Can be a positive from an energy point of view.

Selcier, would you explain more about what you find strange in the article? Thanks for posting, this is interesting!

There were many parts I found strange. I could really rant about this. But like I said: the group of people I know don't think like this article. Almost no one wants the suburbs and they'll buy super small in the city in order to stay. If its small, its small. No big deal: the city is your backyard.

Also, the thing about formal rooms: I totally agree on that point. However, about the flexibly of rooms I found odd. Not that room can serve different purposes in itself but when they pointed out that the family might need to expand powder rooms to full bathrooms and needs bonus rooms/unfinished basements in order to be happy.

Also, comparing the home to a cell phone. Are we all so entrapped and enamored by our devices? Do we need to control the thermostat from the go? Do millennials need to feel like they have so much power over their daily lives that a house without apps is confining and old fashioned? Its like distopian novel up in here!

I would have thought that my generation was one of the most transient. Many people go to college in another city and then move somewhere else for a job. See new places and travel the world. But this seems to imply that all we want to do is settle down in the suburbs with 2.5 children our large (to many people) 2,900 sq ft. house with rooms that we don't have any purpose for but to put all of our stuff.

And heaven forbid the patio is only a 10x10 block. But no outdoor kitchen, please. That's so our parents generation.

*end rant*

Robo, I love the Gulf coast! Lucky you to be there in the winter.

Our a/c registers are in the ceilings, so the a/c has to push the cool air all the way down from the vaulted ceilings. I think the peak in our LR is 14 feet, and the lowest part where the register is, is about 10 feet. The a/c unit that was installed when the house was built was not big enough to keep up with the volume, so our house was typically pretty warm in the summers! The current a/c (new last summer) is much better.

The issues with the vaulted ceiling are painting the upper parts of the walls, working on the ceiling fans (which hang on poles but are still up high), changing the light bulbs in the kitchen (which are flood lights in the ceiling)...things like that. :)

Donna

Selcier, I found that comment about flexible rooms odd too. I grew up in a post-war ranch box: a living room/ dining room combo, no FR, no eat-in kitchen, one bathroom. Flexible rooms was the concept back then too. I don't think they work in reality. It means you're doing all your living in a big room or two adjacent rooms. What to do with life's stuff? Kids need toys, and parents need to supervise kids -- so you are living with that clutter. You need to pay bills and store papers (yes, still!), so what to do with that clutter? If you have a hobby, what do you do with the paraphernalia? You can't get away from TV noise. You eat where you do all your other living, and the food spills/odors are visible/smelled from your living area. "Indoor/outdoor living" tracks in a lot of dirt. Worst of all is the lack of personal space -- I believe it was a big factor in my mom's depression way back when.

Living in a pared down house can be very constraining & it gets messy fast. Too many hamsters in the cage ;)

I love vaulted ceilings. I am indifferent to a lot of other stuff ( fancy bathrooms ), but that will always be a priority. My house has 9' in areas not vaulted and I wish I had vaulted more rooms. The basement level has 7.5 and I don't like it, a building regret I was talked into.

Selcier, I found the suburb comment odd too. It certainly doesn't match the preferences of Millennials I know, though my sample may be biased as I live and work in a dense urban area. But I don't think the article is about Millennials now, necessarily. I think it's about Millennials once they've started having kids. The presumption seems to be (and maybe it was supported with survey results; I had that impression) that Millennial families will want to migrate out to the suburbs, much as previous generations have at that life stage.

I don't necessarily think that's true. The Millennials I know value not having to drive everywhere, whether they are biking or using public transportation. And suburbs = cars. Most of the Millennials I know who have kids haven't moved.

In my area (Oakland, CA), another factor that drives families to the suburbs is the quality of the schools.

As for the being able to convert powder rooms to full baths, etc, I think their focus again is on Millennials approachingt the life stage where they are growing their families. If you buy a house as a couple and then have two kids, yeah, that full bath might be looking pretty appealing. I know a number of people in my own generation who added on or renovated when their family outgrew the space. Sometimes moving makes sense, but in other cases the economics for adding on make more sense (my friends added an upstairs master suite and a second bath to their 2 bed/1 bath house after twins increased their family from 4 to 6).