My Hot Tips for the Coming Trends in Home Building

This month I made my annual pilgrimage to the International Builders Show in Orlando and was fascinated to see the latest innovations, materials, and trends shaping residential and multi-family construction.

Watch my short video below if you’d like to see my takeaways from this great event.

This year the message coming through loud and clear is that consumers want a better quality of life, for less money, and with less footprint. This ties in with national and international trends for down-sizing, sustainability, and future-thinking, and was reflected in some of the great ideas at the show.

The Best Products and Future Indicators

I saw some innovative ideas, all of which are designed to enhance the homeowner’s experience. Here are my favorites:

• An intriguing pneumatic tube elevator which can be retro-fitted in multi-story homes, making them accessible to all.
• Great electric fireplaces. Eighty-five percent of people want a fireplace in their home so these are a great choice for energy-efficient heating in the cooler months, as well as providing desirable year-round ambiance.
• I was excited to see the air conditioning and heating company, Lennox, has now created a system which works entirely from solar panels. With this in place homeowners can be entirely free of the utility company while enjoying a climatically controlled home.
• Another great design was from Anywhere Solar, who are making solar and wind-powered charging devices. You can leave their charger outside all day and then charge your phone or iPad on it at night, courtesy of mother nature.

Green and Clean Continues to Lead the Way

The most interesting ideas were those which were enabling consumers to harness natural energy or to use energy better. Over the next few years, alternative energy options are going to become integrated into the items that we use in our everyday lives.

Today’s home-buyers are already demonstrating willingness to pay for items that will decrease their cost of operating, while improving their quality of life, and that’s good news for the future for all of us in my opinion.