Downtown Areas Attracting Home Buyers

August 3, 2008

A specious home in a suburban area, with a large yard where the kids can run and play — that was the dream of most families a few years ago. But that demographic trend is changing. Increasingly, a key housing demand today has moved downtown, where homeowners can sometimes walk to their point of employment or shopping or sports-entertainment venues. Long and very expensive commutes are out. Walking is in - the cool way to get to work and reach other destination points. Or at least they want to be close enough to use mass transit systems.

Those downtown area homes, often condos or townhomes, are particularly appealing to young professionals. Many of those households have no children, and many are singles. In fact, one-person households are now almost as numerous as families with kids, according to one report. "Recent market research indicates that up to 40 percent of households surveyed in selected metro areas want to live in walkable urban areas," said Christopher Leinberger, a professor at the University of Michigan and a fellow at the Brookings Institute. The changing demographics we’re seeing today reflect a major shift in the way an increasing number of Americans - especially younger generations - want to live and work, he said in a CNN report.

The trend, sometimes referred to as "the new urban movement," started to gain momentum in the mid-1990s. But it accelerated in recent months and years as energy costs soared and many suburban areas became blighted by unoccupied and rundown homes that have been foreclosed.

In a recent survey conducted by Coldwell Banker Real Estate, about 78 percent of their Realtor members reported they are seeing more interest in urban living because of the high cost of gasoline. The primary reasons for interest in urban living are related to work commute and energy-efficient modes of transportation, according to survey respondents. "Urbanization is a largely positive trend," it was noted in a report carried in Urban Land magazine. "It is kinder to the Earth’s ecology to house large populations in compact urban areas than to spread them out across the countryside."

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