Charleston Real Estate Market Update

Analysis of data from the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors' Multiple Listing Service shows the real estate market in Charleston continues to stabilize and improve.  The charts below show comparisons of sales of single family homes in Summerville and Mount Pleasant from December 2008 to February 2009 and December 2009 to February 2010.  In general the supply of homes for sale has decreased and the number of homes sold has increased.  Decreasing supply and increasing demand indicate an improvement to the market.  Pricing (average price per square foot) is also stabilizing in many areas. Summerville appears to be lagging behind Mount Pleasant but the number of homes for sale in Summerville has declined steadily for many months, a definite positive trend.

The number of single family homes sold in Summerville declined slightly year over year, while the number of homes for sale was down (partially due to builders limiting construction of standing inventory homes).  The number of days homes stayed on the market remained about the same year over year, while prices adjusted downward from $95 per square foot to $88 per square foot.  The median price of sold homes has also decreased.  Affordability is the best it has been in years for homebuyers in this area. (Click on the chart for full-size viewing.)

In Mount Pleasant, sales were up and inventory was down.  The average days homes that sold sat on the market was up slightly.  The price per square foot of sold homes was down $8 per square foot but stabilized in recent months.  The median price of sold homes increased from 2009 to 2010.  Affordability was up in Mount Pleasant, and many home buyers took advantage of an opportunity to buy in the area while prices were low.  Several Mount Pleasant neighborhoods have less than six months of inventory as sales of homes priced under $400,000 are moving briskly. (Click on the chart for full-size viewing.)

Tiny Houses - How Small is too Small?

As the economy contracted and families tightened their budgets, smaller homes have become more popular.
The National Association of Homebuilders report that the size of homes is decreasing.  The national average is now around 2300 square feet, down 100 square feet or so from recent years. Builders are constructing smaller more energy efficient homes with efficient space planning.

I like this idea of better space planning and energy efficiency.  Less home means less to clean, heat, cool, and maintain.  But how small is too small?  Could you live in 100 square feet of space? Take a look at these "Tiny Houses"  .

Given that they are detached homes, water, sewer, and electrical lines have to be run to them.  Would that be called "tiny sprawl"?  I think a more environmentally sensitive solution is infill development and redevelopment in our cities where utility services already exist rather than starting new neighborhoods of tiny homes.


On the other hand, these tiny houses are cute as a button - like oversized doll houses. My husband thinks the tiny houses look like sheds or outhouses. Indeed, some of them are delivered on trailers.  I love my husband and cat but would need at least one room to get away once in a while. One of the larger "small house" plans might work for us.

I do like the philosophy behind tiny houses, which is to simplify your life.  Get rid of the stuff you don't need and don't accumulate more stuff or become a slave to your stuff.  With a smaller house, you save money and time that you can then put toward living -- spending time with friends and family, going on vacation, or volunteering. When we moved overseas, we purged a lot of our stuff and rented a smaller house, and I have to say I'm enjoying it.  When we return to the states, both boys will be in college and we'll likely downsize further.  I just don't think we're quite ready to go tiny!!

Unintended Consequences -- Turtles, Alligators & Taxes

I "rescued" the turtle from my front yard and carried him back to a pond across the street last summer.  I was concerned a car would run over him as our house was near a busy intersection.  I had a choice of three ponds in which to deposit him and chose the one that historically had the most turtles resting on a concrete drain pipe on sunny days. Fewer turtles had been there in recent weeks, so I reasoned he should go back to that pond.  I carried him at arms length.  Turtles, as a defense mechanism, will urinate or defecate profusely,  and I was trying to avoid that issue. I set him down on the bank and he scuttled into the pond.

Two days later, a neighbor alerted us that an alligator had taken up residence in the pond over a month prior.  At this point, I knew I probably had not helped this turtle.  Perhaps he was aware of the alligator and making his way to one of the other neighborhood ponds. I was trying to help him, but Mother Nature had her own plans and designs. My intervention may have saved him from being run over but probably didn't save him from becoming the alligator's lunch.

Similarly, a few years ago, South Carolina passed legislation changing our property tax system.  Sales tax rates increased to provide funding for schools.  Property taxes shifted to a Point of Sale program where homes were reassessed for their sales value when they sold.  Existing homeowners saw their property tax bills decline as the school funding portion of their bills evaporated with the new legislation.  People purchasing homes saw taxes increase after they bought their new home.  Real estate agents and homeowners were cautious about disclosing the taxes on properties on the market, knowing that the new owner's taxes would be higher, concerned that higher taxes might dissuade a prospective buyer from purchasing the home. 

A few years down the road several unintended consequences have arisen from the Point of Sale tax system:
1)  Some next door neighbors paid very different amounts of property taxes depending on when they purchased their homes.
2) Investors were disinclined to purchase properties as higher property taxes made cash flow impossible on rental properties in some areas.
3) Businesses considering locations in South Carolina also became aware of property tax disparities and some chose to locate elsewhere.
4) Sales tax revenues declined as people spent less due to the economy, resulting in less money for the schools. School funding shortages resulted in teacher layoffs and other issues affecting the quality of education and facilities provided to our children.

Now, with the significant decline in real estate sales prices and the overall economy, home buyers are purchasing homes closer to 2006 values. In some cases, with the decline in property value, the taxes could potentially be less than the previous owner was paying. Significant disparity remains for those who purchased homes in the intervening years before prices fell.

State government, local government, South Carolina Association of Realtors and others are working on tax reform measures but no consensus has been reached.  Some propose changes to encourage businesses to locate in the state.  Others feel business/commercial, investor, and owner-occupied property taxes should be addressed.

With counties, cities, and schools seeing budget shortfalls, it is clear that more tax money is needed to provide continued services for the public good.  Hopefully any resolution will be analyzed from every angle for future unintended consequences, and the tax burden will be fairly and equitably distributed among all sectors.

It's hard to predict how natural systems or the economic/financial systems will react to changes.  Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, we make things worse!!

Good News in Charleston Real Estate -- Inventory of Homes Decreasing

One real estate market indicator we watch is the inventory of homes for sale.  

Data from the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service shows that the inventory of homes for sale in Mount Pleasant is decreasing, a very positive trend for our market.



The inventory of single family homes for sale in Mount Pleasant was 916 as of February 1st, 2010 and has remained below 1000 homes for the past three months. The number of homes on the market in Mt Pleasant had not been under 1000 since June 2006.



Month                    Number on Market
November 2009            997 homes

December 2009            957 homes

January 2010                 916 homes



Peak inventories have also decreased since the July 2007 peak of 1330 homes.



Month/Year         Peak Inventory
October 2006       1147 homes

July 2007               1330 homes

July 2008               1224 homes

May 2009               1174 homes              



Similarly in the Charleston Tri-County Area (Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester Counties), the inventory of available homes for sale has fallen to 6227 single family homes from a peak of 7430 homes in August 2008.  The last time the inventory of single family homes was under 6300 was in March 2007.



As home buyers take advantage of historically low interest rates and home buyer tax credits, we expect inventories to decline further, continuing this positive shift in our market.

Charleston Area Median Prices - Goose Creek & Johns Island Increase in 2009

Here's a nice map showing the change in median price for various areas of Charleston (courtesy Charleston Trident Association of Realtors). Changes varied across the market.

Goose Creek and Johns Island saw year over year increases in their median prices. West Ashley was not far off the target with a lower decrease than many other areas.

Areas with a lot of second homes generally saw larger declines as activity in this market segment dropped off. Fewer people are interested in second homes during a down economy. Home sellers in these areas have significantly lowered their prices, so there are some tremendous values on the barrier islands. See the average price per square foot numbers in the charts for Kiawah Island and Seabrook Island, Sullivans Island and Isle of Palms, below.  The number of sales in these areas have improved as buyers are scooping up great values. Click on the figures below to see them in full size.

 

  

  

 

Charleston Real Estate Market Statistics

Sitting in Germany, I've been staying abreast of the Charleston real estate market.

Here's a short video courtesy Charleston Trident Association of Realtors:  Charleston Real Estate Market 2009 Summary

Below are charts for the Summerville and Mount Pleasant areas.  The good news is that the inventory of homes declined over 2009 as buyers took advantage of the first time homebuyer tax credit, historically low interest rates and declining prices which made homes more affordable than they have been in years. The largest dent in the inventory of unsold homes came at the lower price points as the majority of homebuyers in 2009 were first time buyers. The price per square foot of homes that sold decreased and the number of days it took to sell a home increased area-wide. In 2010 if the economy continues its recovery and unemployment rates decline, we are hopeful the real estate market will continue to shift to a more balanced market with prices stabilizing. Click on each graph for full-sized viewing!

And History Repeats Itself (Again)

My teenage son's certificate of deposit was recalled this week. Apparently the bank (selected by the money gurus at Charles Schwab) failed, so he won't receive the interest he earned on the CD.  We had encouraged him to try a CD because savings accounts don't pay anything either. Where can a person put money these days to earn interest, especially if you don't have much to invest?  How can you teach your kid the merits of saving and investing in today's economy? I continue to be miffed that our tax dollars bailed out the banks, and those same banks are recording ample profits, paying bonuses, etc. while  my kid can't get his small change interest.  There is something fundamentally wrong with this.

Today's New York Times article notes that real estate securities failed miserably back in the 1920s and history has repeated itself.  Will we ever learn?

History Repeated -- From Louis Sullivan to James Howard Kunstler

I became a fan of James Howard Kunstler in the mid-1990s when I read his books "The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape" and "Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century."  This sometimes humorous presentation he made at TED a few years ago will give you a feel for his thinking:  James H. Kunstler's TED Presentation  He continues to write weekly on his blog  and has published several additional books. (Pardon his language. I think he's become increasingly frustrated with the direction the nation has taken and uses some expletives. He does make good points though.)

I purchased architect Louis Sullivan's book  "Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings" 20 years ago at Taliesin West when I was in Phoenix for a workshop on writing environmental impact statements.  Sullivan was a mentor and one-time employer of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. "Kindergarten Chats" is a collection of essays originally published in the journal Interstate Architect and Builder in 1901 and 1902. In the essays, Sullivan chats with a fresh-out-of-school, fictitious architect, a kindergartener in the profession, and shares his outlook on the built environment's influence on individuals and communities as well as the influence of money on architecture and design.

Kunstler and Sullivan's messages are so similar, although they lived a century a part in time. When Sullivan wrote, the automobile was in its infancy and the nation had not yet weathered the World War I, the roaring 20s, the Great Depression or World War II.  Both men advocate for responsibility in design of buildings and communities and individual and collective participation to develop and implement policies for healthy, functional communities. Both believe that architectural and urban design are often corrupted by individual's or community's desire for personal financial gain.  Do local governments approve projects to improve the community or to gain tax base and favor from developers who stand to gain money from the development?

Here is an excerpt from Sullivan's essay on Responsibility, which feels as current and applicable to our nation's current economic situation as if it were written yesterday:

"There is a far too wide-spread, too general feeling in the mass (people), and too acute an accentuation of it in the individual, that this deeply and seemingly surely-founded social fabric exists solely for personal profit and exploitation; and that, once his taxes paid, or evaded, and his voting done or left undone, he, the individual, has rendered quid pro quo; that his responsibilities to his fellows, to his country, to himself are at an end -- that he may move on in his narrow groove of self-interest without detriment to his fellows, to himself, or to his country......

Nothing more clearly reflects the status and the tendencies of a people than the character of its buildings.  They are emanations of the people; they visualize for us the soul of our people.  They are as an open book.  And by this sign the tendency today is disquieting.

No, a people clearly is accountable, willy-nilly, for all its acts.  It cannot logically accept responsibility for one class of acts and deny responsibility for others; for a people is an aggregated individual, to be held in the balance of fate morally and responsibly for all his acts.

It is trite but none-the-less true to say that the national life is but the reflex of multitudinous individual lives; that Democracy varies in its states of health accordingly and likewise in the rhythm of its growth and development.  Individual neglect, indifference, inattention thus become, in the aggregate, national.  If the individual is not impressible by things, qualities, relations of a certain kind, that unimpressibility becomes by force of numbers a national trait.  If the individual denies or ignores his responsibility, how shall he protest when others do so? Thus, national characteristics accurately reflect the preponderance of individual characteristics; and thus our national politics, our municipal politics and our architecture are precisely what we are willing they should be.

Our national adolescence is passed and gone.  We are entering manhood and we must recognize and face its responsibilities, or pay the penalty.  A prudent man takes his bearings carefully.  So should a prudent people--entering, as we are now, over the threshold of a new era that is to liberate moral forces of power and insistence hitherto unknown though not unsuspected; a century that is destined to bring forth unique outbursts, explosions, catastrophes and cataclysms of new birth."

German Housing

Since we moved to Europe in the fall, many people are asking me to post photos of our home.  Here are some photos and commentary about the differences between American and German homes. We are renting a duplex/townhome in a small village.

We live in the right side of the home.  Our landlord is Russian and his son, daughter-in law and grandchildren live in the left side.  They have a garage and we have a carport.  The homes are very close to the street.  The style is typical for our area -- stucco exterior with tile roof and no front yard. On Saturday mornings, the Germans sweep their sidewalks and along the curb of the street.

This view is down the hill toward the rest of our village.  There are many gardens in any available open space.  In the warm months, most homes have lovely window boxes.  There are several farms in the village with horses, goats, and sheep.  Some people have chickens and roosters too. There is what I think was an old flour mill that is abandoned. On the far hills are windmills.  There are wind farms throughout the area that generate electricity. We can walk easily to three other villages.  There is a commuter train stop about ten minutes from the house.  The nearest larger village has several bakeries and restaurants.

Here's our kitchen.  Cabinet and counter space are limited.  The ovens will hold a small cookie sheet.  Through the doorway is a small room where we have a second refrigerator with freezer, a microwave (220V) and shelving (our pantry). In the main kitchen, we have a transformer on top of the cabinet and wiring running down to a multiplug so we can use our 110V kitchen appliances (mixer, crock pot, etc.)

The German fridge (below) has no freezer.  The cabinet above and below store food and pots and pans.  The sink is small and not deep.  They don't do grinders/garbage disposals here. 

The baths are a little different too.  The toilet tank is inside the wall.  There are two buttons to select from to flush -- a small button for less water and a larger button for more (as needed!).  There are no cabinets or countertops for storage, just a ledge.  We bought a bath cabinet collection on sale at Ikea to provide storage space in the upstairs full bath. Three of us share the full bath; it can get sporting in the morning, but it works.

This is the upstairs shower and bidet.  There is a second full bath in the basement with a tub but we haven't used it yet -- it's too much of a trek from bedroom to that bathroom.  There is no ventilation in the bathroom aside from opening the window, so I put out damp rid to help ensure we don't have mildew issues.

Some details from the shower.  The shower pan is plastic and has this interesting design.  The shower door has dolphins.  I don't see how they go, but it's a rental!!!

This is the laundry room in the basement - a lovely pink/purple hue. The washer is an American-style washer, and the dryer is European style.  It basically dehumidifies the clothes. There is a tank in the dryer where the water collects, and then we empty it into the utility sink. It takes a good two hours to dry a load of clothes, and the tank has to be emptied at least once during the drying cycle. Many older European homes were not outfitted for dryers that vented to the outside, and these dehumidifying dryers work wherever there is power.  Many people hang their clothes out to dry.  We set up shelving and a workbench in the remainder of this room.

Back on the main floor, this is the view from the living space into the dining area.  The kitchen is a totally separate room with no space for a table.  To the left is a wood burning fireplace. Note the floors throughout the house are tile, except for the bedrooms which are laminate.  They are hard on the feet, so we enjoy our area rugs. The exterior walls are concrete and difficult to hang pictures, so I tacked a tapestry over the dining table.

View of the cozy living space and fireplace. The oversized mouse hole under the fireplace is designed for wood storage; however our cat enjoys hiding there. Our US lamps work fine with plug adaptors and 220V light bulbs.  Hubby used the move as an excuse to buy a new dual voltage tv.  We have a Sky box and get satellite television from Britain.

A door off the dining area opens to the balcony.  Balconies are very popular here.  The cat enjoys it too.  The previous tenants left the window boxes and I replanted them with heather that has thus far withstood the winter cold. Our home backs up to a farm field used to grow hay.  Off to the right of the balcony is a detention pond.  The yard below is fenced with a patio below the balcony. There is a sidewalk leading to a storage area under the carport.  We keep the lawnmower and yard tools there.

This is looking to my neighbor (landlord's kids) balcony.  They don't have a balcony railing!  They do have kids but they never go out there.  The white in the neighbors lawn is left over snow. (I took these photos during our January thaw.) The mound of dirt beyond is the backyard of another home under construction.  Homes are built one at a time here and slowly - taking a good six months or longer.

Back in our house.  These stairs are typical of the newer German homes.  I have seen some that did not have a railing (scary if you have small children).  Thankfully our largest beds are queen sized.  The movers had to really wedge the box springs to get them up these stairs. A king size mattress would not have fit!

The cabinet past the stairs is a shrunck.  We have one for each of us in our bedrooms, and this one which we use as our coat closet.  German homes do not have any closets; you use furniture to create storage. Our foyer bench also has storage.

Because the home has very hard surfaces and the stairwell is open from the basement to upstairs, noise carries throughout the house. Area rugs help a bit.

This is the smallest of the three bedrooms.  Many homes have rooms similar to this with the roofline forming the ceiling and a window that tilts in providing light.  You can lie in bed and watch the stars at night.  The bedrooms have laminate floors and radiator heating.

The bathroom has a similar window.  They do not install mechanical ventilation fans in the bathrooms here, so the only way to eliminate moisture is by opening the window.  They recommend people air out their homes pretty much daily to reduce moisture levels and prevent mold problems since the homes are fairly tightly built and there is no ventilation via bath fans or the heating systems.

The windows open sideways and have deep window sills great for storing items or growing house plants.  They also tilt in so you can leave them cracked on a rainy day or open just a bit for ventilation at night. Finally (below right), most German homes have rolladens.  These are metal coverings that roll up and down over the exterior of the windows and doors.  They provide security and also protect from drafts on windy days.  On very cold days, we leave our rolladens closed in rooms we aren't using as added insulation.  People tell me that in the summer, once the sun comes up, they'll close their windows and rolladens and this helps keep the homes cooler as most homes do not have air conditioning.

This is our master bedroom.  Again, there is no closet, so we backed the two shrunks to the angled wall and created additional storage space behind the shrunks.  The room is amply sized but an awkward shape.  This room is also heated by radiator. There is no master bathroom.  There is just the single bath with one sink, toilet, and shower on this floor, shared by all of us. There is no linen closet either.  We keep spare towels in our bedroom.

Our pseudo walk-in closet.

Most German homes do have ample attic space.  The main beam is about 7 feet high, and we have natural light too, which is great.  A metal fold down ladder opens to the upstairs hallway.

The hot water heater and heating system are located in the attic. The radiators in the bedrooms are served by this system. The remainder of the house has under floor heating.  There is no fan or furnace that circulates air.  This is good for keeping the dust down if you have allergies, but the home has very definite warm and cold spots.

This is the light bulb in the attic -- for my home inspector friends' amusement.  I really don't know if they have building codes or code enforcement officials who look at housing construction here.  It seems structurally the homes are built solidly, but we have had several electrical, plumbing, and heating issues.

This is the unprotected plug for the hot water circulation pump.  The pump was sounding like a diesel truck engine, and our brave (or stupid) Russian landlord unplugged it once he figured out it was the noise maker.  We don't have instant hot water any more but it also doesn't sound like we're sleeping at a truck stop!!

I should note that US authorities inspect housing that is rented by Americans, but I don't know the extent of those inspections.  I think if a home was inspected once and cleared, it is then ok in perpetuity.  I did ascertain the whereabouts of the gas and water shutoff valves with our real estate agent to minimize any potential disasters.  Also, the homes have smoke detectors but no carbon monoxide detectors, although most do have gas service.

This is the large downstairs space - L-shaped similar to the living/dining room above it.  The sliding doors are the only access to the backyard.  The left hand door tilts in, similar to the windows. We use this room as a fitness space for aerobics and martial arts and our son uses it as his film room.  The door has rolladens and the room can be blacked out and lighting adjusted as necessary for filming.

The other half of the "rec room" with our son's green screen set up (for all our film friends). The cat likes to sit on the green screen on the floor in the sunshine.  One of these days we'll film her and do something fun with it.

This is the window that should have been a door from the carport into the kitchen pantry area. Recycling is mandatory here, so we positioned the requisite containers outside the window.  We open the window and put our stuff out.  When we get groceries, if I have help, I pass them in through the window.

The cans are blue for paper, brown for biodegradable and black for "restmulle" which is the non-recyclables.  We also have yellow bags (gelbesacs) in the house for plastics, foil, and cans.  Glass items have to be taken to a recycle drop location about a ten minute walk from the house.  Sorting takes a bit to get used to but isn't hard. The hard part is keeping track of the pickup schedule.  Paper goes out once a month but restmulle and plastic go out every other week, and they pick up around 6 am, so you have to have your stuff out or wait for a couple more weeks or a month for the next pickup

.I hope you have enjoyed your tour!!

What is New Urbanism?

My son asked me today, "What is New Urbanism?"  I don't know if he really wanted to know or was just humoring my need to communicate with him. He's listening enough to have caught the term and that's good. I think the younger folks are going to inherit and have to deal with suburbia and the recovery of the housing industry and the economy for some time to come. His interest is encouraging to me.  Perhaps where we have let down his generation, they will rise to make things better for their kids.

Here was my response:

The basic idea of New Urbanism is that communities should be built so that people can walk to all of their basic needs within about ten minutes.  Basically zoning one piece of land for one use and another piece for another use, essentially segregating uses, results in sprawl that cannot be economically sustained for the long haul.  It is more expensive to run all the extra sewer and water lines to the suburbs than it would be to keep businesses, schools, churches, and homes closer together and intermixed in essentially small towns.

New Urbanists are for more public transportation and pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly streets and against having an automobile-based society.  In well designed communities, people interact with each other because they can walk places and don't have to hop in their cars to drive everywhere.  This interaction enriches quality of life for individuals and the community.

My old neighborhood, Seaside Farms, was pseudo-New Urban as we could get most of our basic necessities via a short walk to the grocery, beauty salon, laundromat, mail place, coffee shop, bakery, fitness center, etc.  Homes designed for New Urban neighborhoods homes tend to be smaller, more efficient in their space planning, more energy efficient by design, built well with renewable resources, and placed on smaller lots.They are also more varied in size and style to encourage a mixture of people in different ages and stages of their lives to live together in the community.

The idea is pretty much that people have become slaves to big houses, big yards, and long commutes to make money to pay to our mortgages, maintain, heat and cool our houses, and there is a better way to live through communities designed differently.

Some malls and shopping centers are being converted into mixed use communities.  The idea isn't to tear everything down and start over; it is to implement changes in current zoning practices to allow mixed use, to retrofit neighborhoods and areas as time and money permit, and to implement these design practices in new communities as they are built. I think a lot of this is common sense, but we need public policy changes to allow the ideas to be implemented in existing communities and neighborhoods, especially in those areas ripe for re-development.

When you are looking for your next community, consider it's walkability, whether most of your needs can be met by nearby services, and how nice it would be to be out of your car for a while.

Learn more here:  New Urbansim

Ideal Living Environments Enrich Relationships

I just put my older son back on a plane to return to college.  I feel so fortunate that he and his younger brother are very close and miss each other when they are apart.  I was thinking last night about the homes the boys lived in as they grew up and how the neighborhoods and floor plans may have affected their relationships.

In St. Louis, the boys were around 2 and 4 years old.  We lived in a ranch with one open living/dining/kitchen area where the boys played while I cooked dinner or read the paper.  Their bedrooms were adjacent to ours and they had to pass by our door to get to the family room so we could keep tabs on them. We also had a deck and fenced backyard that they really didn't use much.  The neighborhood was true suburban bedroom community with wide streets and no sidewalks. It was very quiet during the day when everyone was at work and no parent would let their kid ride a bike or play in the street for fear of them being run down. We drove to activities and enjoyed the St. Louis Botanical Garden, the City Museum, Zoo, and many summer days at a nearby pool.  The lack of interaction in the neighborhood resulted in our family being more tightly knit as the boys were their own best playmates.

The floor plan of the house in the Seattle area probably had the greatest affect on the boys' relationship.  They were 5 and 7 years old when we moved there. The house was in a suburban neighborhood of about 40 homes all in a loop with a narrower street and sidewalks - a design that encouraged people to interact.  The neighborhood was bounded by a retirement community, a main road, an elementary school, and a junior high school. There was plenty of room for the boys to run and explore with other neighborhood kids. We knew our neighbors and everyone looked out for each others kids - all ages played together.

The Seattle house was our first two story home.  This home also had an open family room/kitchen layout - great for family time. Upstairs, the boys' rooms each opened to the hall and also to their bathroom (a Jack & Jill bath).  The only way into their bathroom was through one of their rooms.  They planned and held secret nighttime meetings in their bathroom to solve their world's problems.  I really don't know what they discussed and during those meetings, but I am absolutely certain the floor plan of that house encouraged their close relationship that has continued to this day.

When we moved to Charleston, I looked for a neighborhood and home that would match the Seattle house and found Seaside Farms. Seaside Farms has about 400 single family homes, plus condominiums and apartments, a retirement community, a number of lakes with paved trails for walking, a playground, neighborhood pool, and a grocery, fitness center, and a number of other shops and restaurants within easy walking distance of the homes. By this move, the boys were 8 and 10 years old and we were feeling a need for more space as a family and individuals.  Our bedroom was downstairs and the boys had the run of the upstairs.  The upstairs landing was open to the great room and their evening meetings were a challenge as noise carried throughout the house. If anyone was watching television in the family room, everyone had to listen to the show. As the boys became teenagers, they really needed a true family room where they could hang out with friends, and we needed a quiet space to read and relax.  I finally understood why some people have homes with a formal living room and family room -- something we had not wanted or needed until the teen years.

We did enjoy the Seaside Farms community.  We could walk to the grocery for eggs or milk.  The coffeeshop owner and several other shopkeepers lived in the neighborhood. It was nice to know people and be known among people in the community.  Our older son got his first job making pizza and could walk to and from work. The walkability of the neighborhood encouraged interaction among homeowners. We had annual Fourth of July parades that wound through the retirement community, and the retirement community allowed the neighborhood to hold meetings in their chapel. Seaside was a small town within a larger city and we greatly enjoyed living there.

Neighborhood and style of the home you live in greatly affect how your family interacts and how you interact with your neighborhood and community -- the experiences you have and how you feel about where you live.  When looking for a new community or home, I encourage people to reflect on the activities they enjoy and the way they like to interact with others to help define and understand the living environment that would best suit them.When you make your next move, really look at the neighborhoods and see how they fit you and then look at the floor plans of the homes and see how they fit.  Do you like an open floorplan that encourages family together time but need that one room for quiet space?  What are your favorite past times and where are they located relative to the neighborhood and house?  How far is it to work - both distance and commute time?  Some people don't mind a long commute as they listen to their favorite radio show or audio book and appreciate a good distance between them and their work.  Others want the shortest commute possible and enjoy living, working, and playing close to home.  Each individual and family has to define their best living environment.  Finding the right fit will enrich your life and that of your community, just as it enriched the very satifying relationship between my sons.

The Cul De Sac Syndrome

I just finished reading "The Cul De Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream" by John Wasik, a finance writer for Bloombergs.  I bought the book thinking it would be about redesigning neighborhoods -- the actual layout of them for better community interaction, but the book was more about the dead end we have hit with our economy.

The book rehashed much of what we all already know -- that Americans are in a current world of hurt because we overextended, buying McMansions to keep up with the Joneses on credit that many could not afford. Wasik lays out the history of US policies to encourage home ownership, touting it as the American Dream, which has now gone awry for so many people due to our propensity to spend more than we can afford to maintain appearances that we are indeed successful among our families, friends, and associates.

Wasik delves into the physical unsustainability of suburban neighborhoods that are costly to homeowners in time and gas spent commuting and costly to cities in providing services to vast geographical expanses of houses.  His solution is to revitalize cities with affordable energy efficient housing close to jobs and public services.

My question is: what will become of the suburbs?  We will see gentrification of the cities pushing lower income people to the suburbs -- a reverse of the migrations of several decades ago?  If so we will still badly need public transportation.  Despite our dependence on oil, I don't see Americans giving up their cars anytime soon.  We like our freedom to go where we want when we want and until gas prices get much higher, we'll continue to have an automobile-based society.

Millions of homes could (and should) be retrofitted with more energy efficient appliances, windows, etc. Homeowners, even if they know the cost savings they will see in their energy bills, need to have the money to make upgrades.  Those with the means will buy newly constructed, energy efficient homes or upgrade their homes.  Those without the means will necessarily continue to pay more in utility bills.  There is not an easy solution, even with offering the tax break carrot.  If you're out of work, you're going to spend money to put food on the table, not upgrade your windows.

Wasik also suggests that public schools be funded at the federal or state level vs. locally.  I wholeheartedly agree with his position that education is the basis for a strong nation and economy and a right for all citizens.  School funding based on local tax base provides less funds to schools in lower income areas that probably need more money to provide programs to lift children up. I like this idea.

It will take both changes to public policy and our values to really improve the quality of our built and social environments.  With the current economic crisis, I do believe people will begin living within their means and that smaller homes will become the new norm.  Success now means that you have a job and can make your house payment - who cares about the Joneses?