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Privacy is a key to attracting townhouse buyers.
In markets where the housing downturn is lingering at the bottom or new home sales are still in freefall, it’s hard to imagine — or remember — a scenario of active communities filled with excited shoppers. While there is little upside to a recession, this lean time affords each one of us the opportunity to reflect on our expertise and explore ways to improve our offering. It’s everyone’s job to figure out what floor plans, designs, and options buyers are willing to pay for and where opportunities still exist for builders.
Housing affordability, lifestyle, and location still drive the purchase decision, and the choice for many home shoppers today is attached living. For many people, buying a townhome means trading some of the desirable aspects of single-family living. This isn’t so. Townhomes can deliver the best of both lifestyles when creative planning is involved.
As you explore niches in your marketplace and contemplate creating a townhome community, the following six guidelines will help you plan, design and build a neighborhood that delivers the desired lifestyle.
1. Appeal to Specific Market Niches
Both entry-level buyers and empty nesters are attracted to townhome living, but each group is drawn to different spaces and floor plans. When considering which market to target, make sure you understand how deep each niche is in your locale.
Don’t be afraid to mix plans and niches within a project or even within a building. Location can help determine the right audience and the right product mix. For instance, buyers at Santa Rosa in Woodbury East (Irvine, Calif.) include a mix of young professionals and families attracted to parks, schools, and the neighborhood’s central location. Floor plans include open living spaces and indoor/outdoor connectivity. Smart space planning provides for multiple living spaces in the various plans, which range from 1060 square feet to 1431 square feet.
2. Create Outdoor Spaces
Creating surprise spaces captures buyers’ imaginations, delivers a memory hook, and eases (if not erases) the comparison to single-family detached living — and nothing does this better than and outdoor room. Plans with courtyards (such as the one shown here on Plan 2 at Garland Park, built by William Lyon Homes) fill with natural light, enlarge narrow spaces, and increases the overall lifestyle space.
Careful planning makes it possible even in higher density neighborhoods to ensure that every home enjoys insulated outdoor spaces that truly become an extension of the interior living spaces. Among empty nesters, where more open plan configurations make for a casual lifestyle and easy entertaining, outdoor rooms — both covered and uncovered — often are as large and luxurious as any interior rooms.
3. Handle the Car
Creating suitable ways to hide the car in townhome communities requires careful planning. Tools you can use to house the cars as well as the people include:
• Tuck garages in the back off an alley.
• Employ a cluster concept to turn a linear street scene heavy on garage fronts to an enclave that exposes architecture and front doors to the street.
• Vary garage placements to animate the street scene.
No matter which configuration works with your neighborhood, remember that direct access garages enhance the lifestyle buyers want.
4. Soften the Density
Some simple ways to soften the feeling of density without actually reducing it include:
• Employ four-sided architecture that mixes materials
• Create smaller unit clusters rather than several bigger buildings
• Vary roof pitches within a building to differentiate units and create visual interest
• Design entries and public spaces around people, not cars.
At the recently-opened Santa Barbara project in Irvine, Calif., staggered plan placement and a private processional entry space into each home alleviates the attached home feel.
5. Execute Appropriate Exteriors
Details make all the difference in executing appropriate exteriors in townhome communities. Designing a cohesive building with a visual identity that sparks interest can be accomplished at every price point, for every buyer profile, in every architectural style. Some guidelines for accomplishing this include:
• Use four-sided architecture that brings articulation to every side — even the alley. Mixing colors and materials can help achieve this goal without adding substantially to the cost of a project.
• Use appropriately themed architecture. Authenticity matters and details create the contemporary expression of authentic styles.
• Accept and embrace the notion that appropriate architectural expressions evolve over time and with location. As this example shows, three different effects are achieved by changing the exterior style.
6. Make the Community Special
Special starts the minute a buyer turns into a neighborhood, so start creating a favorable impression right at the entry. Create a sense of arrival into a neighborhood with entry monuments, water features, and landscaping. Do the same within each plan — create a sense of place and establish an arrival sequence.
Offer varied lifestyle opportunities within a community by managing the product mix. Include the amenities that matter most to buyers. Items on the “most desired” list include walking trails, shared community space, and recreational areas of every stripe as defined by the target market.
Putting It All Together
To capture the new wave of buyers, spend time now evaluating your market, understanding the niches, and determining how to deliver the type of attached homes and neighborhoods they desire. It isn’t enough to just dust off old plans, eliminate some cost, and hope for the sales. Designs for today’s market must reflect the profound effect the economic reset has had on consumers’ desires and behaviors. As new home sales pick up, buyers will respond to the right product at the right price and in the right location.
Scott Adams received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley in 1979 and joined renowned Southern California-based Bassenian/Lagoni Architects in 1989, specializing in combining density-driven architectural designs with innovative land planning concepts. He can be reached at sadams@bassenianlagoni.com
