Every year, Chicago based real estate agent and author Mark Nash compiles a list of the top luxury housing trends from a survey of over 1, 000 industry professionals. This year, along with the continued popularity of the destination or spa bathrooms and gourmet kitchens, a few more extras showed up that might surprise you.
Building Trends:
- Pet Showers
- Home Elevators
It seems that the boomer market is looking at elevators with an eye toward their later years. Rather than buy a rancher, just install an elevator to avoid the dreaded stairs.
- Floating homes
The ultimate in lifestyle living. Luxury buyers prefer their floating hoes to be in calm protected waters (as I'm sure everyone does).
- Eco-Friendly and Off the Grid Homes
We have referred to this emerging trend in the blog before as I noticed a higher than usual number of inquires from buyers interested in creating this type of lifestyle. Probably due to a desire to leave less of a footprint on the Earth combined with fear of fallout from dwindling oil reserves in the world and future high energy costs.
According to a variety of sources including HGTV , the decor trends for 2008 are as follows::
- Purples and grays are hot.
- Continued Asian influence including silks and exotic touches.
- Natural eco-friendly materials (wood, stone flooring, cork, etc...)
- Leather is still hot, albeit a more "feminine" looking leather.
- Whites: all shades.
- Crystal Lighting.
- Understated Hollywood Glam: a touch of metallics, antique lamps, copper sink, etc...