INTEREST IN RANCH HOMES ON THE RISE
Single-floor houses are experiencing a surge in popularity among homebuyers
It might seem like Washington County real estate developer F. Lynn Foltz is a creature of habit when it comes to building houses.
He’s lost count of how many housing units — more than 200 — he has built in this region since the late 1990s, but they all have one thing in common: The master bedrooms are located on the main floor.
His business model had a specific generation in mind from the start.
“I knew when baby boomers sold the big homes they raised their children in, they would want to move to a house with master bedrooms on the first floor,” Mr. Foltz said.
Unlike the traditional one-story, ranch-style home, these two-story attached units have finished basements to accommodate family and friends. But all of the spaces the owner would use every day — kitchen, laundry room, family room, master bedroom — are on one level. Buyers have paid between $200,000 to $500,000 over the years for the luxury condos built throughout North Strabane, Cecil and South Fayette townships.
Stairs are a fact of life in most Pittsburgh houses because of the region’s hilly terrain. It’s challenging to find enough flat land to build communities with wider homes instead of taller ones. But one-level homes have always been popular with older buyers who want avoid stairs.
In recent years, builders and real estate agents have started to realize a growing number of young people prefer homes with no stairs, too. Demand for new construction of one-level homes has grown to a point where developers are paying more to acquire the land because buyers are willing to pay more for the homes. Some even demolish old buildings to make way for new construction or incur the expense of moving land around to make it flat.
Karen Marshall, a real estate agent for Keller Williams and part owner of all five of the company’s South Hills offices, said the market for one-level homes has evolved during her 33 years in the business.
“I’ve never seen a surge like I see now of young people looking for one-floor living,” said Ms. Marshall, who is the listing agent for a condominium unit that Mr. Foltz is selling priced at $538,000, as well as another first-floor master unit next door listed for $638,000 on Surrey Woods Drive in North Strabane.
“I just had a young guy in his 30s who had back surgery years ago and needed a house with no stairs,” she said. “Young entrepreneurs definitely like first-floor living. Even young couples, if they don’t have a baby, they don’t worry about sleeping on the first floor and being separated from the baby.”
She said even the communities built by Philadelphia-based developer to Traditions of America — developments like Sewickley Ridge and Summer Seat — that have thrived in this region over the last 10 years with their single-level homes have begun to attract younger buyers, although the communities specifically target age 55 and older buyers.
Double the cost?
Houses in the traditional twostory design with all the bedrooms upstairs dominate the landscape in the Pittsburgh region. A big reason is that one-level housing — for the same square footage — is more expensive to build.
The cost of the land for such projects could be double since builders might need to buy two lots to build a sprawling one-level ranch-style structure. One-level homes need bigger foundations, as well as more roofing and exterior building materials.
“If you have a 50-foot- or 60-footwide lot, it’s tough to build a 2,500square-foot one-story ranch house with an attached garage. The lot is not wide enough,” said Howard “Hoddy” Hanna III, chairman of O’Hara-based Howard Hanna Real Estate Services. “The lot has to be at least 75 feet or 90 feet wide, and that creates an increase in price.”
He said demand has been so great in the past five years that buyers are willing to pay extra.
Spurred by that demand, Mr. Hanna said builders are carving out tracts of land with earth moving machines to create the flat terrain needed to build. They are tearing down older one-level homes to build new ones with larger footprints and in some cases, they purchase double lots.
Builders of one-level homes often get the maximum use from the land by grouping houses together as fourplex condominiums.
“The problem with that is the zoning prohibits you from doing it in a lot of municipalities,” Mr. Hanna said.
He said Pine and Peters townships are examples of suburban communities where builders of one-level fourplex condos have trouble getting approval because of zoning limits on the square footage of lot sizes.
Post-WWII ranch homes
Plenty of unattached ranch-style homes already exist in older Pittsburgh communities.
“Typically, historically, if you wanted a first-floor bedroom, you got a ranch-style home,” said Tom Hosack, president and CEO of the Berkshire Hathaway franchise in Pittsburgh.
Ranch homes in this market sit on private lots in many of the postWorld War II communities like Upper St. Clair and Bethel Park, Shaler, Penn Hills and, to a lesser degree, Monroeville.
There’s no way of knowing how
many of them exist or how well they sell versus traditional two-story homes. West Penn Multi-List does not track specific sales data for one-level homes.
Mr. Hosack said while baby boomers are behind the rise of one-level homes, the reality is that people across all ages are planning for their futures. Why not buy a one-level house and avoid the hassle of finding a starter home, a family home
a home to retire in? “A lot of people might not be older now, but if they are going to live in a house for a long time, they might need the ability to live on one floor,” he said. “Younger people also worry about the eventuality that ‘Mom might need to come live with us, and she needs the first-floor bedroom.’ ”
All of the big three builders — Heartland Homes, Ryan Homes and Maronda Homes — have started building one-level homes within the past five years.
But small independent developers like Mr. Foltz and Paul Scarmazzi were among the earliest to recognize the potential demand and to devote their resources to serving that market.
“It’s what people want,” said Mr. Scarmazzi, owner of Scarmazzi Homes in Canonsburg. He said he has built about 600 one-level homes since 2000 in communities that include Chartiers, Cecil and North Fayette.
His one-level homes are, for the most part, aimed at luxury buyers. They feature nine-foot ceilings and transom windows that attract light throughout the house.
Floor plans are designed around a side courtyard that can be seen from any room in the house.
The homes generally sell for about $400,000 and have an average of 1,800 square feet of living space. He said his communities offer the same maintenance-free lifestyle and quality of housing, but on a much smaller scale — a maximum of 70 homes — than those of Traditions of America developments, which contain hundreds of homes.
Mr. Foltz’s first-floor master bedroom units all have at least 3,000 square feet of living space in the whole house.
It may be all about living on one level, but there’s room for visiting family. He puts a couple of bedrooms upstairs for visitors and includes finished basements for grandkids.