Dream homes now built on patience

Young families shopping for a home may need to wait for their dream place. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Typically, “marriedwith-children households spend the most on average on home improvements,” notes Abbe Will of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (HJCHS). Young families account for 20% of remodeling spending each year, all within two years of buying their home. Because the Harvard center predicts that home sales will slow, remodeling expenditures are also forecast to drop this year partly due to families postponing projects after purchasing. Unless buyers are left with lots of cash after their home purchase to tide them over in case of emergencies, delaying improvements is prudent, especially in these uncertain economic times, says Dan Moisand, a financial planner in Melbourne, Florida. Families aren’t attracted to homes that need extensive remodeling, but look for a home that meets their needs, notes Earle Airey of the 21 Mike Team at Century 21 HomeStar in Solon, Ohio. Architect Dawn Zuber of Studio Z in Plymouth, Michigan, agrees: “Few people have the ability to look at a true fixer-upper and see the possibilities, so they tend to buy homes that are close to what they are looking for and then remodel the kitchen or update a bathroom.” But a delay may bring new, more beneficial ideas about the right improvements. “I think that sometimes, after living in a home for a few months or a couple of years, a homeowner might see their home’s shortcomings in a different light or find that they’ve adapted to those perceived shortcomings in ways they couldn’t have imagined before living there. In this way, living in a house that you want to remodel might result in lowering the cost of your remodeling project,” Zuber notes.