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
Walk-in or no lifting areas to wash off bowser are big on the list of desires.
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...
