BUILDER NEWS What will it take for more millennials to own homes? homeoIn the last 10 years, the wnership rate among Creating A Passive House With Luxury In Mind fThe design for the modern home or sale overlooking the Ponus Ridge Land Trust in New Canaan, Conn., strikes a serene setting. On 1.74 acres, the sprawling residence measures about 4,000 square foot with four bedrooms - each with ensuite baths - and two terraces and a three car garage. Yet despite its striking beauty and bountiful amenities what makes the residence unique is less noticeable to the untrained eye. The home is the first-ever to be built in New Canaan to Passive House Standards, a rigid level of energy efficiency that uses upwards of 90 percent less energy for heating and cooling than do traditional homes. It’s air-tight construction allows the entire residence to run on the same amount of power it takes to operate two hand-held hair dryers. But rather than succumb to the usual soulless, boxy designs that accompany many energy efficient homes, the New Canaan structure marks one of the first to be elevated to high-end luxury, employing a level of inventive elegance rarely seen in energysaving designs. “Passive Houses are more efficient than the average home, but that doesn’t mean they can’t also be luxurious,” says Salvatore Zarrella, founder of Fairfield County-based Construction Management Group (CMG) and the team behind the New Canaan home. The firm is building three Passive Houses in Connecticut and is at the forefront of the movement to elevate the energy-saving design aesthetic to luxury living. The company is also building a modern home with a glass enclosed herb garden in Stamford, Conn., that is that city’s first certified Passive House. It was voted by Cottage & Gardens magazine as one of the “Most Beautiful Listings of 2015”. Read More 28 HBRA of Fairfield County | SUMMER 2017 people aged 25 to 44 has dropped by 10 percentage points, per a recent study conducted by Fannie Mae and the University of Southern California, HousingWire reported. Fewer millennials own homes for numerous reasons, including the foreclosure crisis, a lack of entrylevel inventory, a slow job market and stringent mortgage lending. Millennials are also waiting longer to get married and have children. There was a correlation between higher education and potential increases in salaries and wealth, which could raise the millennial homeownership rate by 1.5 percentage points in the next 20 years. Closing racial education gaps could raise the rate by 2.5 percentage points. And doing both those things could push the rate up six to seven percentage points during that time. It’s not so much that millennials don’t want to own homes as it is that they lack the opportunity to. Roughly half of new homes are priced below $300,000, one Moody’s director told Construction Dive last year. Prices higher than that can be too costly for a firsttime homebuyer, who might also have student loan debt or a salary that cannot cover a mortgage just yet, let alone save up a down payment. Read More
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