My Built Environment: Good, Bad, and Really Ugly

Here we go! We now have a residential project where the client wants to follow the LEED ND checklist as much as possible in the hopes that the development may become LEED certified when the LEED ND checklist comes online in 2009. We are just starting the project, so I am not certain yet what all we will be doing. It is a smaller development, only 28 homes, but that size should be good for testing this. Over the next few days we will develop concept plans and review the LEED ND checklist in more detail and see what we can and cannot do. As part of this process, we will also be evaluating the market feasibility of LEED ND.

Another component of this that we will be studying is which green home building tool that will be implemented along with the development. This might be following the built green program, energy star, and LEED for New Homes. Whether a specific program will be implemented, or wheaher that gets left up to each builder will be decided at a later date.

Tonight I attended the Group Inc’s real estate forecast presentation for 2008. For those of you not in Northern Colorado, The Group is the largest real estate firm in Northern Colorado. The main thing I got out of it, which is what I have been thinking, and have been hearing from many people, is that our local market has “bottomed out” for lack of a better term. Things are going to start improving. It won’t be booming by any means, but it will be more balanced. The latter half of the year looks to be better than the first half, and that will carry over into 2009. For the next year, they are predicting that sales will be slightly over 2007, which was down a little from 2006, which in turn really dropped from 2005. That points to a bottom of the market. It is funny though how things are in perspective. For Fort Collins, they are predicting about 3,700 home sales. For everyone concerned that is a down market for around here. Interestingly, that is only 300 sales less than the peak back in 2004, and is similar to the sales pace in 1998. I remember 1998 being a pretty good year. It is amazing how it is all relative.

They also stated that in some neighborhoods, price points, etc. there is actually a shortage of homes available, which can happen in any market, good or bad.

Now for what I wish they would have done. I wish they would have spent some time talking about the various market segments, where is the activity? I wish they would have spent some time talking about what buyers are looking for, where they are coming from…what product is selling. Is the only thing selling homes Granite Kitchen counter tops, or are buyers looking for something else.

Now, for my predictions. Overall, I feel the market will continue to improve, though at a sustainable pace, not a torrid pace. I think the markets will be there for infill product, niche product, and amenity based communities. I think people are going to demand more from good design and architecture. They will want their homes to be unique and individual, a reflection of who they are…even from production builders. The street scape will become more important, with a variety of architectural styles, colors and materials. The look alike homes of the past decade will become a thing of the past. I predict buyers will become more interested in mixed use and mixed income neighborhoods…intermixing products within blocks, and not so segregated as they have been in the past. Buyers are going to continue to look for homes and neighborhoods that are designed within the context of the green movement, and that are energy efficient.

Well, that is all for now. I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are!

You would not believe it, but on Thursday, my back up laptop went down for the count. At first I thought it was the power cord as I have had issues in the past. But it turns out it was the internal power system. I am seeing if that is fixable, or even worth fixing.

So I went and bought a new hard drive for my main laptop, got it all setup again, only to find that I was having the exact same problem with the same program as I had before. Arrgghhh. I did some online research, and discovered that it was a software problem, and there was a fix available. So I was able to get it fixed, and moved on with life. Now the question is, why did it quit working in the first place? I had been using the same settings and hardware configurations for some time. Why would it work one night, and not the next morning?

Technology…you love it and hate it at the same time. On the bright side, during all the rebuild I discovered that my laptop has bluetooth capability. Now if only I can get my Blackberry connected by bluetooth, life will be good.

Today I finally received notice that my licensure application was approved. I am now Landscape Architect #290 in the State of Colorado. This is a follow up to my earlier ranting about the State government misplacing my application!

It must be Murphy’s law, the best laid plans of mice and men. Yesterday I had a big deadline trying to get 3 home plans out the door to structural engineers. I had my whole day planned out, with no meetings scheduled. The day started at 5:30 am when my daughter came in crying with an ear infection. Since my wife was a teach parent at the preschool with my son that day, I was the one who had to take our daughter to the doctor. So I got on my computer to work on my deadline, and I couldn’t get into CAD. After trying several times, I came to the conclusion that my hard drive was failing. I realized this, because this has happened to everyone one of our laptops. So instead of working on my deadline, I spent the day backing everything up (which I do anyway), and getting my back up computer up and running again. Fortunately, I didn’t lose anything, and I did manage to get everything out, though a few hours late!