How do you value a home?
The hyping of our homes has been part of the postpandemic culture. We are bombarded by media telling us what we should value in our home.
This year, the Houzz website declared 28 “trends” in desired features of homeowners. Things like “appliance garages” and planting between outdoor pavers attempt to focus our perception of what we value to the soundbites of impulse purchasing, triggering consumerism — the essence of continuing a housing boom.
The Connecticut house market also has the confusing perspective of looking at the future while trusting the aesthetics of our legacy in determining the value of our homes. Last year, Redfin published an article titled “12 Connecticut Style Homes: From Classic Cape Cod to Grand Greek Revival.” It called out Connecticut real estate sales as having 10 popular “Traditional” styles from Cape to Craftsman to Colonial and only two “Contemporary” styles as drivers of sales in real estate. Aesthetics might be the obsession of architects (like me) but most people are just reacting to what they see the most.
Homes are as universal in our lives as the food we eat and the clothes we wear. Like fast food and Amazon ads that pop up everywhere, we are also inundated with marketing when it comes to finding a place to live. But we cannot change our homes like we opt for a new menu item or a different blouse. Our homes are a direct extension of us. Since the home is our biggest asset, and our biggest risk as well as point of pride and fear, it’s good to get some perspective on the competing outlooks. The typical way those who market homes try to focus consumer interest in them is to focus on “trends,” rather than value.
The hyping of the home is going high-tech in this century. Lawrence Berkeley Lab in California defines the future of the American home as being technological, and a lot of that is a response to climate change. Whether found in new materials or machines, there is a wholly formed future of energy conservation via technology that is marketed as “net zero” or “sustainable” and moving into “resilience” engineering — all in response to climate change (and useful to those who market homes to generate home sales). Redfin again gives perspective; on its list of most “valuable” design trends in Connecticut, the highest “tech” feature that enhances a home’s value is a wood stove.
The same wood stove that has had value since the gasoline crisis of the 1970s.
Some media focuses on the esoteric musings of architects. Dezeen, a website devoted to design, quotes an architect/ theorist Alexandra Hagen: “Continuous upskilling in design, sustainability and tech is crucial in 2024” — whatever that means. This leaves homeowners more confused rather than inspired. And, according to that Refin list, baseline features like bedroom and bathroom count and even “ranch” styling are more important
than “net zero” or “sustainable” (which don’t appear on the list at all) in valuing homes.
The essential worth of our homes is found more in how homeowners appreciate comfort and safety, rather than its inspiring assault on a changing future. Through schools of thought like the “Pretty Good House” movement or architect and writer Steve Mouzon’s “Gizmo Green” description of the fundamental values of our homes, it becomes clear that the aspirations of technological relevance are less important to most consumers than
the way they live their lives. Mouzon laments that culture has come to push the idea that “our only responsibility is to be consumers, which is exactly how the Consuming Economy thrives. But consumption lies at the heart of the problem. The removal of our responsibility combined with the necessity of consumption creates the Gizmo Green Conundrum: How can we say we’re sustainable if that sustainability is based on us consuming more stuff and not needing to live differently ourselves?”
Despite the vested interests of designers, real estate marketers and home technology industries, every home is deeply personal, no matter how universal the need for a home is.
Our idiosyncrasies and humanity are uniquely valued in our homes. Many buy a car based on its color, but although black trim and “farmhouse” kitsch may make great vehicles for hype, we buy our homes based on our values, not on their image.