Transcript 0:00 [gentle music] Is healthy building the way to go? You need to understand that. Is the market still moving at a fast pace? These are questions you need to ask. 0:11 Do prices remain high in your area, or is some materials higher than in other areas? Is the supply chain slowing down projects? It's very important to understand this. 0:30 [upbeat music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. Hello, listeners, and welcome to today's edition of The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:47 I'm your host, Peggy Smedley. Did the new year bring new opportunities for housing? Will people continue to look for new homes in the new year ahead? What will the housing market look like in twenty twenty-two? 1:03 Will it speed up? Will it slow down? And then there are a couple of elephants in the room we need to address. What impact has the pandemic had on housing and the moving? 1:20 Will homes be more or less affordable than previous years? What features are most of us looking for in our homes? And will the supply chain bottlenecks continue to impact new and renovation projects? 1:37 I will answer all of these questions on the first segment. But first, later on, I have some guests I wanna tell you that are gonna be on the show with me today. 1:46 I will be talking to Jennifer Hofstetler, vice president and general manager at the Data Center Platform Strategy, Mobilization and Sustainability and Services at Intel. 1:58 So she's got a big title and a lot of responsibility. And then I'm gonna wrap up the show with Kirsten Hanek, director of research at Parks Associates. So stick around. 2:08 We've got a lot of things we're gonna talk about today. So let's get started. 2:13 Mortgage Cadence surveyed more than a thousand Americans in January of twenty twenty-two to get their feedback on homeownership and what this year will bring in terms of a homeowner's overall outlook. 2:28 Now, let's set the stage. This survey shows roughly three in five people are planning to move this year. Not surprising, if you think about it. 2:38 Of those planning to move, more than one and half, one and a half plan to stay pretty close to their current location. 2:48 But a quarter are planning on moving to a new state, while only three percent are planning on an international move. Of those planning to move, one in ten say they are planning on buying a new home. 3:05 Of those planning to buy a new home, roughly forty-nine percent are first-time homo- homeowners. Thirty-eight percent are planning to upgrade. Twenty-eight percent are planning to invest. 3:21 Seventeen percent are planning to grow in their family. Sixteen percent are planning kind of like a job relocation. Twelve percent are looking for new market opportunities. 3:36 Another twelve percent have found their dream home. And only two percent, which is not surprising, are planning on downsizing. 3:46 Now that we have set the stage, as I like to say, let's address a couple of these elephants, like I say, that are in the room. First, before we go any further, number one, the pandemic. 4:00 Has COVID-19 impacted buying a home? According to this survey, forty-one percent say yes. In fact, more than one-quarter of the people have already moved once since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 4:17 Let's face the facts here. Remote work is all, is allowing kind of many of us, many people in general, to live where they want and maybe where they've always wanted to live, you know, 'cause you can work from home. 4:32 Many people have decided to move closer to relatives. Others have simply scored that great new job they have always wanted. 4:41 In my research, I have found the pandemic is not only impacting where people choose to live, it's also impacting the houses themselves. Many people want more space to spread out at home. 4:55 Large open spaces are being replaced with multiple home offices. We're, we are seeing trending to bigger homes with more outdoor amenities. 5:08 Also, the rise of healthy homes is one that is gaining traction as people spend less time at the office and more time at home. These are all things that the pandemic has changed and made us think about. 5:25 These are all things we now need to consider as we look for new homes and build new homes. Now let's address another elephant in the room. Will homes be more or less affordable by the end of twenty twenty-two? 5:42 Roughly seventy-seven percent of people are concerned about the rising home prices, and roughly seventy-two percent of people are concerned that interest rates will increase once again this year. 5:58 Based on market analysis I have seen, I don't think prices are dropping anytime soon.And we all have talked about it. We see all the reports. 6:07 As of last month, we are still seeing record highs and no signs of any of that slowing down anytime soon. So we all need to be aware of that. Now let's talk about home features. 6:21 What do those buyers, what do we all want as buyers in our home? Is it technology? This is particularly interesting because this survey suggests location, square footage, and price are top of the list. 6:35 But other studies that I'm seeing and I know about and I'm a part of show technology is a big contender. The National Association of Home Builders annual What Buyers Want, really want study paints an interesting picture. 6:52 For example, exterior lighting and security cameras make the top of the ten list, pointing to the fact that safety in the home is a priority. This is something I talk a lot about on my Project Sustainability podcast. 7:08 So if you want more in-depth detail about water and air quality and lighting and energy trends, make sure, you know, you check that out, because I think you'll want to find and learn more about what's going on there, because I think it really gives you some in-depth information. 7:22 Before we finish there, though, there's one more fact we need to address, because when we think about all of these things and lighting and all these things, we want to go on. 7:31 I want to address the real interesting thing that's happening, the supply chain. Everybody's got to talk about the supply chain. We all know the supply chain is causing bottlenecks across nearly every industry. 7:44 We talk about the disruption. Home building is no exception. 7:48 In the Mortgage Cadence survey, more than four in ten say they're interested in buying a new home and then doing new home renovations, either do it yourself or for hire. 8:01 However, roughly ten percent say that the recent supply chain issue is affecting those home projects. Quite candidly, I'm a little bit surprised that percentage isn't much higher based on what we're seeing. 8:15 I'm personally seeing how material shortage, short-shortages and supply chain delays are impacting home building and renovations. And as we all know, this trend is going to continue. 8:27 It's not going to change unless something else in the world changes first. So here's my opinion for today. The housing market is going to remain competitive. We get it. 8:39 We need to be discussing this because there's so much it impacts all the way around us, our cities, our homes, our communities. 8:47 The pandemic has and will continue to change the home buying process and the homes themselves because it's competitive. 8:57 Even my son was trying to get a home, and he offered so much more, and he offered cash, and he still didn't get the home. It's crazy the amount of prices. 9:07 So right now buyers are focused on larger homes, but larger homes in a sense that they're trying to put their offices in there and more outdoor amenities. 9:16 But I think the desire for a healthier home is going to pick up as well. I think we're all going to see more people wanting better air quality and water quality. 9:27 And I think what we need to th- understand is we want the lighting that makes our environment better. We want to be able to feel better. We want that whole environment that makes it. 9:39 I think we're going to see more people wanting greater lighting control in general. We need it to be more affordable, more interoper-interoperable. But I do believe these trends are taking hold. So here's my tip. 9:56 Study the trends in your region, because this is a really important point. 10:01 I do think there's a lot of regionality to a lot of these home buying trends that we're seeing, and I think that's a big part of what you need to understand. 10:11 Here in the Carolinas, for fact, I'll give you an example, we're finding once the materials are available, builders move very fast. I mean, they don't waste their ti- any time. Other areas may be completely different. 10:25 What you are seeing in your area might be completely different than what you see in another. Is healthy building the way to go? You need to understand that. Is the market still moving at a fast pace? 10:38 These are questions you need to ask. Do prices remain high in your area or is some materials higher than in other areas? Is the supply chain slowing down projects? It's very important to understand this. 10:54 I'd love to hear what you're seeing and what, what's impacting what you're, what is going on around you. There's a lot of things happening, and we need to kind of understand the way the market's changing. 11:07 We need to understand how it's impacting all of us, because I think right now there are a lot of trends that are changing the way we all go to market. 11:18 And I think even more importantly, we can't just assume these cha- trends are just short-term trends. I think we need to understand the impact of supply, demand. 11:30 I think we need to understand the regionality of all of these things that are impacting us right now. 11:35 And ironically, when we look at these reports, we need to understand how these reports are and what they reflect of how many people have been interviewed, and that's the interesting part, because I think what we want as individuals and what we can afford is going to make a big difference. 11:52 We're hearing a lot about EVs, but can you afford an EV? Can you afford connecting it in your home? The regionality of a lot of this is, is going to make an impact too. 12:05 So I think we have to look at all of these things and say, "What does it mean in my area?"How are these things going to make a difference? And I think that's a big part of all of this. 12:15 We're getting swept up into all the hype, but we have to be swept up in what's really happening and what makes sense. Who's gonna take responsibility when something doesn't go right, when something doesn't work? 12:29 We need to understand that, and I think there's a lot of hype, a lot of... I, I always like to say, "Is there fact between fiction in a lot of this?" And I think we need to know that right now. 12:40 Prices in the home building market are very high. I don't think they're gonna come down any time soon, and I think what we're seeing is a little bit different. 12:49 I talk a lot about project sustainability in our new podcast that we've done because I think we need to understand the water, the air, the lighting. 12:59 We, we need to understand our circadian rhythms, uh, things we never talked about today that are changing the way we live, the way we work, the way we play. 13:09 All of those things are going to make a very important impact on our lives, and I think we need to kinda look at all of this because it's changing every single day. 13:19 And I think the bigger part of this is is how are you going to be as a home buyer gonna influence the way companies manufacture product? 13:29 We can all talk about the next greatest EV, but you're putting your money down on a product that's not gonna be here for two or three years. Do you wanna do that or do you wanna wait? Don't get caught up in all the hype. 13:41 Get caught up in the reality of what you really can afford now and what you really need now because technology changes. We all know that. 13:49 So as much as we want something and we're caught up in it, we have to take care of our families and our wellbeing for what's happening now. 13:58 So those are the things I'm curious on what you think, because we have to think about what's happening now and where do we want to be with all of these amazing solutions and where we wanna take care of our families and where they're gonna be. 14:11 And right now, is it a, a healthier, safer home? Because, you know, we're getting all these Amazon goods delivered right now to our homes. We're just barely going back to the office, and then we talk about COVID again. 14:23 Lots of things are changing, very fluid environment, so you have to keep all of those things in mind versus where you're investing your dollars. We don't know right now. 14:32 Lots of things are changing, so all of those things are what you have to keep in mind, again, from a regional perspective. You know? Think y- globally, act locally. We talk about that all the time. 14:45 Those are the advice I give you all the time, but I'd love to hear what you think. I'm always asking you, what is your opinion? 14:50 Those are my opinions right now, and I base my opinions on what I hear from a lot of more s- smarter people than myself. But I collect everyone's thoughts, and I share those giant thoughts with all of you. So all right. 15:03 Well, we are out of time for this segment, but you know what I always like to say? I want you to share your thoughts with me on Twitter. So I want you to put something up on Connected World. 15:11 Tell me what you think, 'cause that's always where, uh, we can share those thoughts on Twitter. Remember, check out our website at connectedworld.com, our show website at thepeggySmedleyShow.com. All right. 15:22 Don't go away. We're gonna take a quick commercial break. As always, this is The Peggy Smedley Show: Your Voice for Our Connected World. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. 15:31 We'll be right back after this commercial break. [upbeat music]
