The new paradigm in new home construction

June 10th, 2009 by Matthew Leonard

Over the last few decades the trend in building homes has been a stepping stone approach. The main goal in building a home was not to live in it long term but to live in it for a few years only to sell it and make a profit to move up to the next bigger home.

In order to maximize the profit from the home, more attention was paid to items that would appreciate quicker or have a higher visual impact on the bottom line at the time of sale.  The mode of operation was very similar to buying stocks “buy low and sell high”.  Buying low meant to use lesser quality materials in the areas that couldn’t be seen like the structure and insulation/sealing systems.

The new paradigm shift that is emerging is that people have a longer view of the home they will build.  They either want to live in their home many years or have it be their last one and they don’t want a huge house with all the maintenance that comes with it.  They now are building with long term focused ideas in terms of quality materials, having the home be as energy efficient as possible and be appropriately sized.

This is good news is that with  better attention to the quality of structural materials, better designs and an overall more enjoyable living space versus pure volume, homes will last many times longer and have a much lower impact on the environment.  People will not feel the pressure to move just to get something that they want because they will already have it.

Tags: Sustainable Construction

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Energy Efficiency, Green, Structure, Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.