How Homes Will Be Different Post Covid

This is episode number 170 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hacken, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us for another live episode of The Homeowner Show. How you doing, Kev?

I'm fantastic. Doing well. How are you, man?

I'm doing well here in round 2 of this attempted episode. For those of you that joined us live on Facebook a few minutes ago, we're back.

Yeah. Thanks for sticking with us.

Yeah.

You just never know here.

It was just, it was just the warmup. We usually do that off air. Today we decided to go with public humiliation.

Well, you know what? Look.

And if you go looking for it, we already deleted it.

Yeah, good luck. It's not there anymore. It's not there anymore. You know what? I heard something pretty interesting today.

Yes?

Did you know—

Nope.

Well, you probably did know this. It is illegal to set fire to your house, right? I— but if you need to, for one reason or the other, don't expect insurance to help. However—

You're talking gibberish. However, If it's my house, I can set it on fire.

If you really need to set your house on fire, uh-huh, you know, there's stipulations in there for stupidity, right? That they will— insurance will step in for stupidity. So just try to fry a turkey in your living room.

Oh, that sounds like a great idea.

Yeah.

Did you watch like a video of this?

No, it's just problem solved. I heard it somewhere else and I was like, this here, this is gold.

Who do you know that tried this?

I don't know anybody.

Are you not naming names?

Well, no, I don't know anybody. I'm just thinking, just, you know, Ryan, Ryan A. Duddle, I need to know, would this suffice? You know, you can't use alcohol or, you know, gasoline to burn your house.

But if you use a turkey fryer, turkey fryer in your living room, that might do the trick. So what if it's not a turkey fryer? What if you just tried to fry a turkey in your kitchen? Well, I would think, look, Kitchens are intended to fry things.

Yeah, you're— and yeah, as long as I think it's a legitimate appliance that just went wrong, right?

Crazy stuff happens all the time.

Yeah, it absolutely does. Yeah, so I'm just saying, if you need to do that, that is an excellent thought, an excellent idea.

You know, you could be like, you're in the middle of like, look, I fried a Twinkie, I was frying a Snickers, right? frying a Kit Kat.

Sure.

And all of a sudden it just came to me. I mean, I got this big pot of boiling oil.

Mm-hmm. I got a turkey. That's right.

It's kind of thawed.

Yeah, mostly.

I should fry the booger.

What's the worst that could happen?

Yeah, right.

New house.

That's the worst that can—

The worst that could happen is I got a brand new house. Yeah, I'm just curious.

Yeah, nothing. Fraudulent about that at all? Not at all. Just a stupid turkey fryer.

What I would tell you—

delicious succulent meat.

That's right. That's my crime. What I would tell you is delete the Homeowner Show off your phone and your social media before you do that so that there's no evidence of—

treat your crime with a modicum of intelligence.

Well, look, I I'm nothing if not thoughtful behind how you get away with things.

Everything I want to do, I just want— yeah. It'd be great. Yeah.

Well, how are things in your world?

I survived the plethora of Christmas parties.

Well, you still got one more.

I got one more.

I know, at least.

Well, I've survived all of them up until now, which is impressive, by the way.

Yeah, it is.

I don't— this may come as a shock to many of our— I don't like to party.

Well, you— okay, I mean, you like people.

I like people.

You like people being around.

I like certain people.

Yeah, I think that's probably a really good— yeah, I want certain— you want certain people around.

Yeah, yeah, it will, especially like when it comes to like groups.

Yeah, I can see that.

Yeah.

Which, I mean, that makes total sense.

So anyway, yeah, I've survived up until now. We got one more, so I don't know that it's gonna be the hardest one, but it'll be a fun one.

Well, it's gonna be one that people will not judge you for. Yeah, for sure.

So I could have cared less about the other one.

So, well, sure, but this one you can really care less. Yes, if you want to.

Oh no, I care. I mean, do you? Just because I don't like people doesn't mean I don't love people.

Yeah, those are big, big delineating factors.

Yes. I still want the best for you.

Right. Just don't want to just do it somewhere else.

Talk to you.

Yeah.

Yeah. So for the, for the party, so going back a few episodes, we reviewed, I think, yeah, here's one. Because I got a box of them, these, these TP-Link Kasa smart plugs.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I've been having lots of fun with these things. And one of the things I did is I hardwired a Christmas globe into the ceiling of my party deck.

Oh, okay.

So I took Kev out there, I think it was last week, and I was like, hey, check this out.

Yeah.

So I voice commanded the Christmas globe through the smart plug, through the Alexa to turn on, and it makes like this pretty kaleidoscope of like—

It's similar to a disco ball.

Yes.

I mean, it gives a similar effect.

See, only I, I like to create the atmosphere of a party. Yeah.

You're like, as long as no one shows up, we're great.

Yeah. Just don't make my attendance an obligation.

Right?

Because then I won't want to go.

Sure. I mean, look, I think that's totally legitimate. Mm-hmm. Well done, Craig.

Thank you.

Yeah, it was a pretty cool effect. I'll tell you that.

Yeah, it looks really cool with all the lights off, but you can still have it with the lights on as long as it's nighttime.

Can you adjust the colors?

No. So, well, I— the reason I— it's, it's a $20 light. Yeah, it's a Christmas light. It's one of those you usually put it in a stake in the yard. You bounce it up on the house, it spins around. It's, it's a way for lazy people to not have to put Christmas lights up.

Yes.

Okay. And so I had this idea, I was like, I wonder if I could do this up in the ceiling and drop it down on the floor so we could just kind of have like a cool effect. And I didn't want to spend $60 on a light and then have the idea not work.

Sure.

But I don't mind having a failed $20 idea.

Yeah.

So I went with that. And it turned out great.

Yeah, I think you could put up like 2 more.

Yeah, easily.

And it would be really cool. Yeah. I mean, it's cool with one.

Yes.

I think you put a couple more up there and it would be—

You think I need different ones?

Yeah, maybe different colors.

Okay.

I don't know. I don't know.

Because they have ones that do like, uh, shapes. Like you can get like Santa Clauses spinning around.

You get some, uh, Disney characters.

You could. Yeah.

There you go.

Well, like, here's the thing though, is like, I wouldn't mind the one I have now when it's not Christmas.

Yeah.

So, you know, I, I feel like I need to be kind I don't want to, I don't want to climb back up there again.

No, I wouldn't either. I wouldn't either.

So, I mean, it's cool. I like it now, but like, I just don't want to do it again.

Yeah.

That's what I don't want to have to take it down. Once I do it, I just want to leave it.

Sure. So, yeah. I understand.

So that's, that's, that's what's going on there.

Yeah. We want to do plugs first?

Yeah, go ahead.

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Yeah.

All right, Kev, we're getting into it.

Yeah, here we go.

It's been almost 2 years now.

Dude, it's been too long.

Uh-huh.

But I don't think things are changing.

No.

I mean, we're, we're here, right?

Right. COVID is— I, I think, I think it's fair, like, like neither one of us are scientists, so like we're just gonna be talking completely out of our rear on this.

Sure.

Well, not completely. We've done—

Yeah, I— we're, we're not complete rears.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like one left cheek. Yeah.

We know more than some people.

Yeah.

Yeah. There you go.

But anyway, I think it's fair to say at this point COVID's an endemic.

Yes, it's here.

Right? It's not going anywhere.

No.

So we're gonna start seeing the effects of that, the way in which we buy, live, and sell our houses.

Yeah, I think we're already seeing a lot of those things.

We are. Yeah.

And those of you who are real estate agents out there or have done any real estate purchasing or selling, you've already experienced some of these things. But honestly, we don't have a list tonight or anything. We're just kind of Going off some, some hunches that we have, some things that we believe to be true.

Which, at the end of the year here, I mean, we've done, you know, however many episodes we do every year.

Yeah.

Which is like 52.

Yeah. That's pretty much it. Yep.

52 episodes. That's all you get. Yeah. Um, but anyway, you know, we— so we pick up a lot. We talk to a lot of people. We actually— you and I actually go to quite a few events.

Yeah.

And so we're talking to real estate agents, we're talking to insurance agents, we're talking to contractors, electricians. We're talking to these guys all the time. And so we're learning lots of stuff. And, and so we just kinda wanted to share with you a lot of the stuff that we've picked up over the last year, 2 years really, about the way that your home life is just gonna be completely different going forward. And, and so let me, let me do a little bit of history here because we, we actually had another pandemic not too long ago, almost exactly 100 years ago.

Yep.

Back in 1918.

Yep.

You remember what that one was? Yeah, you weren't there, but you know what that one was?

Spanish flu.

It was the flu pandemic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we actually had a lot of innovations happen in the home because of that. Okay, so a big one was the invention of the powder room. We didn't have powder rooms in homes.

Is this where they stuffed their guns with powder before they left out on the hunt? No.

Oh.

That's not the one?

That's not the one.

Okay.

So—

because I was gonna say that one didn't survive.

Right. Well, it, you know, and I don't even know that a lot of people even call it the powder room anymore.

No. They don't.

But it's a half bath.

Sure.

You know, and it's—

it—

what— the reason they started putting them in homes, it was— it was a— it was a half bath near the entrance of the home that when visitors came, they could go in and wash their hands.

Right.

Before interacting with anybody else.

Sure.

Because they were coming from, you know, they could potentially be bringing in germs or whatever. And so they would just go in there and wash themselves quickly before they engaged the rest of the home. Or if you were coming home from work or coming home from the store, wherever you're coming, you'd come in the powder room, wash your hands, move on with your life.

Yeah.

You know, interact with the rest of the family.

Uh-huh.

One of the other ones, I didn't realize this up until then, most people kept all of their clothes together.

Okay.

It wasn't until after 1918 that it became popular to put built-in closets in every bedroom.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, that today is what defines a bedroom.

Right.

You cannot list a home with a bedroom unless there is a closet in the room.

Right?

Yeah.

So that's— that was a big change that happened then because not— not bedrooms just didn't have closets.

Where did they keep all their stuff?

They had like armoires and, and things like that.

Oh.

Yeah. Well, and they did it in order to keep the clothes separate.

Yeah.

So that you couldn't pass contaminants from one, you know, And they believed that you could transfer germs. And, you know, you can transfer some things like that if you're not washing the clothes, you know, like if you— especially up north, if you have a coat that you wear like every day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, things like that.

Well, there— I mean, so the house that I grew up in was— it's in, it's in West Texas. My parents still live there, and they have a, um— it's very much a farming community. They commute— they, they farm cotton, other things, but primarily cotton. Well, interestingly enough, when you walk into, well, so you park in the garage, you walk into the laundry room.

Mhmm.

Just off the laundry room, you know, on the backside of the house is a full bath.

Uh-huh.

And there's a closet in there.

Yeah.

I mean, how many bathro— like, a full walk-in closet.

Oh, a full walk-in closet in a bathroom.

In a bathroom.

That's crazy.

Yeah. Well, you think about it, it's because the farmers would come in just dirty like crazy. And so he could literally go in, strip down in the, in the laundry room, walk into the bathroom, take a shower, and he's got his clothes right there.

Huh.

And then he can enter the rest of the house. And that this— it's so— it's, it's a common thing in farming communities to have that sort of setup. And so you, you look at trends like this and you go, okay, there's a reason for this. it would be odd if you walked into that house that I grew up in and went, why is there a full walk-in closet with clothes and shelves and the whole 9 yards in here? But if you understand why, okay, well, that makes sense. I think that's what we're going to be seeing moving forward.

Yes.

Are some very intentional things that are going to happen that even 3 years ago people would go, why? What's the What's the purpose of it? It's wasted space. In fact, there's a lot of homes that were built with quote unquote wasted space that are not being wasted today.

Right.

You know?

Yeah. So one of, one of the other trends that came out of the, uh, the 1918 flu pandemic is subway tile. Oh, um, why? Because it became easier to sanitize a room, particularly bathrooms.

Okay.

Kitchen areas and things like that. Um, so up until then, it wasn't really popular to put subway on a wall. I mean, not subway, put tile on a wall.

Sure.

Um, but then it was because it's, you know, it's—

So why did they start making it pink?

I don't know.

And like teal and green. I, I'm not— you're, you're not going to convince me that that was a good trend.

Talking about like the, uh, the, the toothpaste green?

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I mean, literally, we still have a room a bathroom at the house that I grew up in. That's the pink bathroom. That's what we call it. It's the pink bathroom. And when I— the first house that I ever bought—

Is the bathtub pink? Yes. Yeah.

Uh-huh. The, the toilet is pink.

Yeah. And it's like, once you go that way, it's like, when I replace that one, I gotta replace that one.

Exactly. I— the first house I bought had pink tile in it.

Ooh.

And it's just like— and, and to make it better, uh-huh, they— so, so, you know, I mean, the tile only went up a certain height, right? Whatever that is, like, I don't know, 4 feet or something. From there, they painted it dark brown.

They painted the tile?

No, no, no, just the wall. Just the wall, because the tile went up, you know, 4.5 feet.

Brown and pink?

Dark, dark brown. So that, that, that was their way of fixing it.

Interesting.

Yeah, it was, it was bad. We, we changed it. Yep, we changed it.

You didn't do anything with the pink tile?

Oh, we did something with it. We chunked that stuff, broke it up into little pieces and chunked it.

So, all right, so, you know, enough with the history. What, what are some things that, that you're, you're recognizing or seeing out there that, you know, are— is going to be different?

Yeah, so, uh, one of the things I, I think is, is going to be huge, I think there's a lot of things that play into this, and it— I alluded to it a minute ago, is, you know, there were a lot of homes that were built with office spaces in the front of the house that were just pretty much useless. And people would sometimes turn them into a bedroom. They would, um, maybe put a desk in there, but it's really just show more than anything, a place to put books or something. Uh, but, but what I think is gonna be way more increasingly prevalent is home offices.

Uh-huh.

And, and, and not necessarily the way that they were done 10, 20 years ago where they, you know, you walk in and just to the left or just to the right, there's this office space. I think it's gonna be strategically built in a place in the house that is maybe like off the bedroom.

Yeah.

Or in the living— not in the living area, but in the sleeping area. It's in a, it's in a different location, but it's a large, good you know, really nice office space that you feel like, look, I can, I can be in here and really enjoy it. And I think it's gonna be— gonna have windows in it. You know, it's gonna be on an outer— an exterior wall, those sorts of things. Um, and so people are working at home.

Yeah.

Remotely working is going to not go away. I, I have a lot of friends who have said, look, we're, we're not going back. I mean, a lot of these companies have decided I can reduce overhead. I can increase productivity in a lot of ways. And we're not losing anything. And, you know, my, my people are happy because they're not making an hour commute every day, you know, whatever. Right?

Yeah. I think, I think you're right. And I, I think one of the things as, as we move through this conversation that people need to realize is the things that we're suggesting are going to make it necessary for people to have larger homes.

Yes.

Overall.

Yeah.

Because what I'm, what I'm, what I'm about to add to what you said is I think, I think you're absolutely right, you know, spot on, 100%. People are going to want more sophisticated, bigger, nicer home offices. It can't just be desk in the corner anymore.

Nope.

Like, I need— and, and I think some of this is going to be personality, right? I think some people are going to want like, this needs to be the room that I can shut the door and that's where I go to work and everything else is the house. I think other people are going to be perfectly fine with it being integrated into a larger room.

Yeah.

You know, where it— but like, you're still going to need more space because, well, it's not just a desk and a computer anymore. You're going to have to have other things in order to do your job. I mean, some, some people are going so far as to setting up green screen rooms.

Yes.

So that they can do these Zoom calls so that they're, they're privacy is not invaded upon when they're doing these conference calls. And that's not the only reason you do it. You just don't want people to know, you know, the bed in the background.

Yeah.

Or, like, you don't— your, your house is a mess and you don't have time to clean it, but you gotta get on the conference call.

Yep.

So a green screen is just an easy solution to, to solve something. You just put a, put a curtain behind you.

That's right.

So, so along with that, I think we're also gonna start seeing separate school rooms in houses.

Yeah.

Because, I mean, like, like, for, for us, we decided to move our kids into a different— so we're doing a flex school.

Yeah. It's a hybrid.

It's a hybrid. So, like, for those of you that don't know, it's half school, half homeschool. And it's, it's a private school, but my kids go to school Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Right.

And then they're home the rest of the time doing homeschool, working with mom and dad, you know. And but they're also, you know, they're home Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

Right.

Which has been— but by the way, if you have the opportunity to check out a Flex School or attend one and it works for your family, I highly recommend it.

Yeah.

We love it. But we have had to change the way some of the rooms in our house work in order to accommodate 3 kids doing school at home because, you know, they need to do that stuff at the same time. They all need a workspace. They don't need a lot of workspace. They need a place to do like some worksheets and read a book and all this kind of stuff. like, I, I think you're gonna start seeing parents, you know, have this in the back of their mind. Hey, I remember when everything shut down and, you know, Johnny and Susie had to do school from home and what a nightmare that was that they just completely took over the kitchen table.

Yep.

And, you know, however that worked for that family, you know, and, and so now when they look at a home, they're gonna be going, okay, like, this is like, we got the, we got the living room, we got the family room, but could the family room double as, like, a like, a schoolroom. And so just these dedicate— like what you're talking about before with the office, dedicated spaces where, like, that's where you go to do homework.

Yeah.

And especially, like, you know, I, I think there's gonna be— and I hate to use the word, like, PTSD, but, like, some, some just, like, hard memories of, like, your, your room needs to be your room.

Yeah.

You know? You don't— that's not— that doesn't need to be the place where you work, where you sleep, where you school, where you study, where you do everything because you'll just drive yourself nuts.

Well, it's one of the reasons that that dorm rooms are, are challenging.

Yes.

You know, because it's like, look, I can't do everything in this space.

Yeah.

I gotta get out. I'll kill somebody.

That's right.

And it might be me.

Yeah.

You know, it's definitely gonna be you, but it might be me.

Well, that's— I'm not going first, and so it's gonna be that guy. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, I— so I think that there's some other things that play into that. I think what we're gonna see is we're gonna see younger people buying homes earlier.

Mm-hmm.

As well. Because I, again, w— you know, I, I think especially in, in metropolitan areas where, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, the, the millennial people, uh, of, of today, um, they lived in an apartment.

Mm-hmm.

And while apartments are great for a lot of things, I mean, goodness, you got a lot of amenities. You got a pool there, you got a workout room, you got a community to be a part of. They've got dog parks, all the things you really need. are right there. But again, the problem is, is like my house needs to be bigger.

Yeah.

I need more space. I need to be able to spread out. I mean, I want friends to come over because we're not meeting at the office anymore. So if I've got some, you know, some time to spend with my friends, they've either got to come over or— and I don't have enough space for that. I definitely don't have an office. So I might as well just invest that money, which is another thing that I think is going to be really big is the investment in homes is something that I think people are going, look, there's a lot of value in real estate. And one of the things that we found was that even during a pandemic, the real estate market,

that stayed up.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, that's a— that was a good investment. Now, I know that there's been times in our history where owning real estate has been a problem for people. Not even that long ago, a little over, you know, a little over 10 years ago, that was a problem. But It wasn't through the pandemic, you know?

Yeah. Well, let me say, let me say this. I think, I think you and I probably have a different perspective, like, even on apartment living than other— like, because when you start looking at, like, metropolitan areas, you start thinking about, like, Chicago, New York. Yeah. Even, like, Miami. I'm trying to think of some other ones that would be like this. Anyway, like, you and I, like, we complain about the apartment development going on around here. And you're right. I mean, like, they have pools and dog parks. But, like, you start moving into, like, inner city, it's a whole different ballgame living in an apartment. They don't have those things.

You know?

And, and I think a lot of people who got stuck in one of those during the pandemic are gonna be like, how do I get out?

Yeah.

What's the quickest route out of here?

Yeah. It's, it's super cool to live there if you're not ever there.

Yeah.

You can have a loft apartment if you don't ever have to be there.

Yes.

You know? I'm at work. I'm, I'm living in downtown because I'm working downtown. It's that whole vibe and everything. Right? But it's like, I got nowhere to go. I can stay here. Nothing, nowhere for me to be.

Yeah, right. Yeah, I don't like that.

It's no good at all. Yeah.

So anyway, uh, another thing that I think is gonna pop up, and again, like, I think, I think families are gonna start looking at, I need to buy the most house I can afford.

Yes.

Because I think one of the other things that houses are going to be popular to have is a quarantine room.

Mm-hmm. You know? Yes.

Like, hey, you think you're sick? Go to the quarantine room.

Yeah.

You know?

Yep.

We got a mini fridge. We got your own bathroom. You can hang out down there for, you know, like the next 8 days. We'll leave your meals at the— you know, however, however that works with your family. Um, you know, and I'm not a big fan of that. I mean, like, you know, if I'm sick or if my kids are sick, I'm gonna be with them. I don't, I don't care if they've got whatever.

Sure.

But, like, if you have, like, an older person living in your home, Yeah. You know, you, you might need, you know, you might need the older person to be able to take advantage of that.

Sure.

Or, you know, like a, like a mother-in-law shed in the back.

Yep.

Something like that. I think homes that have those kinds of options with, you know, above garage apartments or whatever that is, that's gonna have that extra living space so that people who are ill and you need— and you have health issues where you need to separate from people, you have that option.

Yeah.

You know, and I think people are going to be looking at homes when they buy them to go, oh, that would be nice, that would have been nice to have, or yeah, we wouldn't have all gotten sick, or, you know, however that works. Um, I think, I think people are going to be looking for those kinds of things.

I agree.

As I've been— as I've been doing a little bit of research on this kind of stuff, I've been looking at what some architects are doing.

Okay.

I'd actually be interested to hear what, uh, David Applebaum. Yeah, has to say about this. But one of the things, one of the trends I'm starting to see is big wide open windows.

Yeah, that— you just stole one of mine.

Oh, did I?

Yeah, that's fine.

No, it's, it's just— I agree, it's a trend I'm seeing, and I think it's because it gives the feeling of being bigger and being outside and having more space. And so you're able to create that atmosphere without actually having to put the, you know, the square footage down on the ground. Um, you know, obviously you're having a little bit of loss of privacy, but with a lot of this kind of stuff, people were like, I don't care about my privacy, I just want to be around people.

Yeah. And honestly, so we live in a house that has huge windows, right? Big windows, tall, like, like literally floor-to-ceiling windows. We have 2 rooms that are just floor-to-ceiling windows. Yeah, pretty much the whole thing. And it, it really creates that open, more, more light coming in, which— so I was gonna couple this with, you know, big tall windows.

Mm-hmm.

Um, again, you can put, you can put window dressings on those things.

Yeah.

You can put whether it's blinds or, you know, all kinds of stuff. They're, they're coming out with, with good stuff. In fact, we have, uh, solar screens on ours to help, you know, keep the, the heat out, but I think that smart homes are gonna be really important moving forward. And the reason is not necessarily just for convenience.

Mhmm.

I think it's gonna be for energy savings. I think it's gonna go, look, we're, we're here more.

Yeah.

So I'm in my house a lot. I got more lights on. So I'm gonna— gotta make sure I got, you know, LED stuff going on. I'm— I, like, The, the whole like, I walk into the room and the light comes off, I, you know, go— goes on, sorry. You walk out, the light goes off. Some of those things I think are gonna be things that might be interesting. You know, smart thermostats to kind of, you know, work with different areas that are being used. I even think that, you know, mini splits are gonna be really helpful because during the day when you're not using a part of the house, you're not gonna wanna necessarily heat

or cool that part of the house.

Yeah.

So all of these smart devices, I think, are going to add up and you go, how can I become more green, right? Like, how can I save money and yet be in my house more often? And plus, it's just— I, I think there is going to be a convenience factor. Like, I'm in this place all the time.

Yeah.

How can I interact with my home a little bit better? I mean, the reality of it is it would be really great if I could be sitting in my office and go, it's lunchtime. All right, I'm gonna look at my watch, know it's lunchtime, I'm gonna turn the oven on real quick, you know, so that whenever I walk in there, I can put stuff in, I don't have to wait, you know, all the—

like, because you know I'm not using the microwave.

Well, when you don't have one in your home, that's right, right? So I, I don't know, I think smart homes and finding ways to get rid of wastefulness is going to be something that we just look at in the future.

Yeah. So have you seen, uh, these smart blinds? Yes, dude. I, I can't afford them, but—

No, I can't either.

I can't justify it.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I, I think that there will be a time though whenever justification for them is gonna be okay, because I mean, again, especially living in Houston, I mean, it's so freaking hot. The summer's like Some of this stuff is just— it completely reduces the—

Yeah, but like, you know, to not have to mess with that stupid string.

Oh, that—

I mean, yes, that will affect so many people's mental health.

Oh yeah, no kidding. No kidding. You got any more?

It'll save cats' lives too.

Oh, but, but Is that really a point?

Well, it's— for some people it is.

It's not. Okay, that's good. I like cats. Do you?

Outside.

Yes. Well, whenever you— so I'm surprised you don't have a cat or two around here.

We used to have a couple.

Just— I mean, 6 acres. Yeah, keep the vermin away.

The, the big dog doesn't tolerate that.

Ah, yeah. Okay, well, here's the thing. Um, funny story, sidebar for a moment.

Uh-huh.

Um, I was on a college campus, the one that I, the one I graduated from.

Uh-huh.

This past summer, I was hanging out with some kids.

Wait, you graduated from college this past summer?

No, no, no, no. I was there this past summer hanging out with some, some kids.

Took you a while there, kid.

And, uh, and there, there's cats all, and there's been cats there since I went to college there before then even.

Yeah.

And, uh, this kid goes, why are all these cats around here? I was like, well, you know, like, there's rodents everywhere and the cats keep the rodents away, you know? And the kid goes, there's rodents everywhere? And I was like, well, not anymore, there's cats.

That's right.

We're in this like cyclical conversation. So it's like, no, that's why there's cats, you know? No, no rodent problem anymore.

No rodent problem. No, just an overabundance of cats.

Exactly. Yeah. All right, I got another one.

Ready? Yeah.

All right, so I think that we're gonna see, um, people moving out into the sparsely populated areas, uh, places where they can get some land, places where they can maybe— I mean, and I'm not even talking about like a lot of land. I'm talking about like maybe a half acre, maybe an acre, um, something where you're not like right up against someone else, just some space.

Space, yeah.

Again, we're talking about space, right?

Yep.

I, I think living areas are going to get larger. I think that, you know, it's interesting, we actually intentionally bought a, a home that was not open concept.

Right.

We—

I remember you talking about this.

Yeah.

No, it's not your jam.

Well, it wasn't. It's becoming more now that my kids are a little bit older. But I think at one point it was really good for us as a family not to have open concept. But I think now we would be a lot more open to it if we were going to build a house at this point. I think we would build it open concept. But having some space for your family to get outside and maybe, you know, maybe a fire pit, maybe a, you know, swimming pool or something just to kind of be outside, you know.

Yeah. So as you were, as you were saying that, uh, it made me think, because if you're, if you're on a bigger lot, and again, we've talked about this throughout the show, you know, a lot of the things that we've been discussing require a bigger house. So you, you have 2 options. You can do a bigger footprint, or you can go up.

Up.

So the most recent data available is from 2019. What do you think is the average square footage of a house? Oh, I was surprised by this.

I'm guessing the average square footage of a house, a residential, in, in just average across the United States.

Yeah.

1,500 square feet.

1,500 square feet.

Yeah. So I'm going with Yep.

The average is 2,300 square feet.

Really?

Yes. Huh.

I— that's shocking to me.

It was to me too.

What would you have guessed if you—

I, I would have probably guessed like around 1,800.

Okay.

If I was— if I just had to guess.

Okay.

Um, but 2,300 is— that's, that's pretty surprising to me.

That's large. I mean, typically, I mean, 2,300 square feet, you've got at least 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, maybe 4 bedrooms, maybe 2.5 baths.

You could probably— I mean, you can easily squeeze 4 bedrooms into 2,300 square feet.

Oh yeah, we had— in fact, the first home we had was, uh, 1,950, had 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and 2 living areas in it.

So bold prediction from me, okay? I, I think, I think you're gonna see the average go up close to $1,000.

So up to $33,000?

Yeah.

You think?

I think so.

It's interesting.

I think it's gonna have to.

Yeah, I— it's interesting you say that because, I mean, my wife and I have been talking about building a house at some point.

Yep.

And in my head— so we've got 2,400 square feet right now.

Mhm.

In my head—

You're above average. Look at that.

We are. How about that? In my head, I'm, I'm thinking probably close to 3,000 is where we will probably want— between 2,800 and 3,000 is probably where we'll wind up.

Yeah.

We got a 4/2 right now. We definitely would like to have at least a 4/3.

Um, you know, I think, I think some people— and like, I'm not trying to sound like decadent or whatever— but I think some people need the opportunity to walk through like a 10,000 square foot house.

Oh, it's unbelievable.

And, and just see what that kind of room feels like.

Yeah.

You know, because it— a lot of, a lot of my clients have larger homes, and it's always It's interesting to me how normal it feels after you've been in them for a little bit.

Yes.

You know, like it doesn't feel as big as you think it would. And so what's the reason I say that is because I don't— to some degree, I don't think it matters because you can be creative with a lot— with a small amount of space.

Sure.

You know, and make it feel big. Like I was talking about the windows and just different things you can, you can, you know, we were even talking the other day because we're about to redo all the the cabinets in our kitchen. And we were having a conversation like, what if we didn't have a refrigerator in our kitchen?

Hmm.

You know, like, because we do— I mean, like, we, we legit don't need that big of a refrigerator.

Okay.

I mean, like, we, we cook a lot of fresh food. Yeah. Um, we don't really utilize our freezer.

Yeah.

Um, and, and if, if we wanted to, we have a giant outdoor freezer.

Exactly.

I mean, like, we we just don't need it. And so we were talking about like, what would it look like if we didn't have that? If we just had like an under-the-counter fridge for the stuff that we need to keep cool?

Milk.

Yeah.

Butter.

Eggs, that kind of stuff.

Butter you don't need.

Yeah, we keep butter on the counter. Yeah.

Milk, eggs.

Sorry if that grosses you out, but it's perfectly safe. We do too. Yeah. So anyway, we were just like, it would, and it would create a lot of space in our kitchen.

Yeah.

But anyway, I still think it's part of the reason I think it's good to do that, just to kind of go through that exercise, is to kind of see what opportunities a bigger footprint gives you. Yeah. And so then what from that do you really like that you would want to incorporate as a necessity into the smaller footprint? Um, so it's, it's kind of a fun exercise.

Yeah, I mean, definitely you would, you would look at some things and go, okay, maybe I can't afford that, but how do I flex my space?

Right, right.

I mean, I, I'm— we've talked often about like, look, very possible that instead of creating an office space in a new house, that it is an office, craft, and Murphy bed.

Yes.

Right. And it's also going to have a bathroom on there, right there, because it's going to be— my, my wife will be using as a, as a home office.

Yeah.

And also as a guest bedroom. They've got their own bathroom right there. But, um, man, Murphy beds are awesome.

Yeah.

Great way to utilize, you know, space.

Expensive though.

They really are. But you can build them yourself. If you— like, for me, for example, like, I, I do carpentry. Um, the, the mechanisms are not that crazy. You know, you, you can buy the mechanisms for— they're still expensive, right?

Sure. $750,000.

For, for the mechanism. But then you build it out and put a mattress on it, it's not, not too bad. But yeah, yeah, like there's a place here called Walls and More and some other places like that that— and goodness, you can pay, you can pay $2,500 to $5,000 for a Murphy bed. But again, you're, you're getting a different amount of space. Yeah, out of that, that can be really, really cool.

Yeah, absolutely. No, I like the idea of a Murphy bed.

Yeah.

So I mean, just to just kind of put a bow on this, and I think this one may be kind of obvious, but I think it's gonna increase the value and the cost of homes. I think people are, and I don't know how this is gonna work with the mini splits, 'cause I do think you're right that we're gonna be sort of compartmentalizing rooms that way. But I think people are gonna begin to look a little bit closer at like filtration systems and air purification systems.

Yes.

Um, just, I mean, one, I mean, like, for what it costs to install an HVAC system, it's not that big of an added cost to what those— a lot of these different ones can do.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, and I know Jay Hughes has talked to me several times that they have lots of options for that now, um, that aren't— I mean, like, they're expensive, but I mean, like—

But again, if you're putting in a new system already to add that probably an extra $500 to $1,000 most likely.

I mean, I don't know, I'd have to ask him.

Yeah.

And I think it varies based off which one you use.

Sure.

You know, because like when we talked to, to Caroline, you know, like she was, she was saying like they have ones that they just plug in the wall and like, yeah, that does the whole house, you know. And so that, you know, you could, you can just do it that way.

Yeah.

Where you don't have to integrate to the HVAC, which, you know, if we're doing, talking about like a mini-split kind of a situation, that might be a better solution.

Yeah.

Because that way you're not having to like tie everything together.

Right.

So, and, you know, and, you know, you go into like a Best Buy, you go into a Home Depot, Lowe's, like they have all that stuff now and you can get it for just a room. You can, you know, they have all— there's lots of different options.

Yep.

So I just think that if it's integrated into the house because it has traditional duct HVAC system, people are going to be paying attention to that kind of stuff.

Sure.

And I think real estate agents are going to pick up on that and be like, hey, did you know my listing, you know, is, is different from the other ones?

Right.

Because it has this. So yeah, I, I—

bottom line is there's going to be a lot more creativity in the way people live in their home. It's not just a place to sleep. It's not just a place to to eat and, and those sorts of things. It's a place to truly live.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. So anyway, if you guys have any, uh, thoughts about any of this, or so there's something, you know, just obvious that we missed, which there probably is, most definitely is. Yeah. Um, let us know. I mean, we, we want to, we want to fill in those gaps and be able to talk about that kind of stuff on the show. Um, anything else, Kev?

No, I think that's it. Thanks for, uh, downloading today's episode. Yeah, you can send that to info@homeownersshow.com. You can check us out at homeownershow.com as well. And go on iTunes if you would. We would really, really appreciate it. Leave us a rating and a review. We'll even give you a shout out on the show. And thanks for subscribing if you haven't already. Do that. But yeah, we're here each and every Tuesday. So thanks for tuning in. And until next time, Will and I'll see you. See you next See time. you later.

See ya.