A Seismic Shift in How Americans Think About ‘Home’

The experience of living through the past several years has radically changed the way people view their lives and their priorities. From work, to family, to the future, there is a great rethinking underway that is reordering how people live.

At the center of that, is the question of where we spend our time and what we think of when we think about home.

To understand just how drastically those views have changed we talked to 650 educated, high-income people, aged 25-50, living in the 10 largest metro areas in the U.S.

What this research makes clear isn’t just that there’s a great rethinking underway, but that this shift is more widespread and has more profound implications for the housing industry than many might expect.

Here are the five most important things we learned.

1. The pandemic has fundamentally changed the way Americans think about housing. The wide-ranging impacts of COVID are just beginning to be understood. But one impact is clear: it has changed the way people think about where they want to live and where they want to spend their time. 

2. The biggest shift: a desire for more flexibility. Through the pandemic, many high-income information workers have experienced the benefits of a more flexible lifestyle – and they don’t want to go back. 2 in 5 say that as they look at the future, they want to spend extended periods of time away from their primary residence. 

3. Many want a whole new model of living. For ⅓ of this culture-defining demographic there’s a desire for more than just extended time away. They want a new model of living that would allow them to split their time between their primary residence and somewhere else, most often far outside the cities they live in. This groups wants to spend half their lives in the mountains, or by the ocean, or in the country.

4. They want second homes, but real estate realties are standing in the way. Nearly half of this group is considering purchasing a second home. But with interest rates soaring and housing scarce – especially in desirable areas – even affluent consumers are finding that challenging.

5. They’re starting to believe a new housing model is the solution. They want the flexibility they’ve experienced to continue. And they want to spend their time – and live their lives – in new ways. But they know the traditional model of owning several homes might not be realistic. As a result, they’re open to new answers – and eager to be shown new models for housing and living. And while their familiarity with shared homes remains low, nearly half believe it will be a big part of the solution in the future.

There’s no doubt that when it comes to housing and how affluent consumers want to live their lives, things are shifting. The question now is who can put in place the solutions they’re looking for and who can help define a new era in American housing.