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Five Real Estate Trends That We're Seeing At Serenbe
Do you prefer to be closer to where you work or to where you “play?” Do you want to walk to restaurants, shops, and activities, or have open land surrounding you? There are as many reasons for choosing a place to live as there are people in the world.
With 70% of Serenbe’s 1,400 acres permanently preserved, residents have always had the best of both worlds - rural perks of forest, trails, and farms right alongside urban amenities within walking distance. Now that people are reprioritizing their lifestyles to adjust to the coronavirus pandemic, even more are finding what they’re looking for at Serenbe. As Joel Kotkin said in a recent Washington Post article, “You’ll no longer have to choose between unaffordable, overcrowded cities and incredibly boring countryside. There will be a more attractive middle ground.”
Here are 5 real estate trends we’re seeing in real time at Serenbe.
With cities largely shut down, the concept of the streets and businesses as our expanded living area has disappeared. The walls of homeowners, apartments, and loft-like homes have started to feel like they’re closing in around them, their multiple roommates and growing families. Space now means more than square footage.
According to Fast Company, “Hardcore urbanites are starting to question their loyalty to big cities and are imagining their lives elsewhere, not only for safety but also for newfound sanity. Harris Poll Data shows nearly 4 in 10 (38%) of urbanites are considering moving to less densely populated areas in the wake of the pandemic.”
The virus is now forcing everyone to consider social distancing as a lifestyle. Potential buyers and their friends have been lured to Serenbe by the space and fresh air. Buyers get the benefits of rural living without the isolation, and enjoy the perks of urban living such as having restaurants, retail, and art within walking distance of their homes.
The work-at-home trend was already building but no one expected the acceleration and mass movement with no end in sight. Remote work is likely to become a more permanent reality, allowing staff more flexibility to live further away from their company’s headquarters and consequently further away from major cities. They will have little or no commute (and high speed fiber internet in Serenbe), and will spend more time within their own four walls with the daily opportunity to reassess their street, neighborhood, and the community they’re living in.
In the quiet of this shelter-at-home and slower life, there is suddenly time to think about what buyers want their world to look like when the crisis lifts. People are reorienting themselves around the little joys in life and connecting to like-minded communities. These “emerging tastemaker communities” are bubbling up across social media, the web, and in neighborhoods like Serenbe.