A home is the largest purchase most consumers make, and the recent economic roller coaster has prompted Canadian home buyers to reassess priorities, change preferences and scrutinize every detail to make sure their new house fits their evolving lifestyle. For Canadian home builders, the need to understand what design features buyers truly want is more important than ever. The most successful builders already recognize what design elements and amenities are important to various demographics and are able to quickly adapt to meet home buyers ever-changing needs.

Each year, AVID Ratings conducts its Design Driver study to shed some light on the home features buyers desire most — and least. The study explores everything from “green” features and exterior materials to fixtures and community amenities. For 2011, the study revealed several shifting trends in home buyer desires, suggesting that builders need to seriously evaluate several aspects of home construction and neighborhood development they may have previously ignored.

Some highlights from the study include:

Small Is the New Big

The grandeur and opulence of consumer preferences during the boom times of the recent past have given way to desires for smaller, more functional areas that can be summed-up as “practicality without sacrifice.” Current home buyers are well aware that big comes with a price and have developed an increasing appetite for sensible designs with increasing utility. It means that smaller footprints and footages are becoming the new normal. While many consumers are willing to forgo space, they are not equating this with having to forfeit functionality. Design creativity is requisite to adapt to this changing preference.

Think Spaces not Rooms

Paring nicely with the trend toward less square footage is the desire for “spaces” as opposed to “rooms.” Cordoned-off boxes are giving way to key functioning areas, driven by lifestyles that often mix family, work, and friends into the same arena. The home continues to evolve from strict borders of tasks, to blended areas of purpose, allowing home buyers to maintain their lifestyle requirements in a world of ever-increasing complexity. Zones for entertaining, working, family activities and retreating, are the focal points important to today’s home buyers. These spaces need to be understood and incorporated into designs for maximum market appeal.

Obtain Data on the Market

Using a best-guess approach in today’s home building market is an unnecessary roulette game. Much like a carpenter is advised to “measure twice and cut once,” thorough research combined with even more thorough research is the formula for home building success. In the past, failures resulted in reduced profits, but in the current economy, failures mean just that. Because there is minuscule margin for error in home building today, comprehensive research is a must. Understanding your potential customers and knowing your competition is not just a wise business practice, it is an imperative survival tactic.

Density, Density, Density

Across Canada, the drive toward increased density is going strong and gaining speed. Call it smart growth, intensification, or any other buzzword — but whatever it is termed, it is here to stay. This creates new demands on builders to differentiate with innovation and creativity. Not only is creativity needed in home design to adapt to the spaces that come with increased density, but site planning must also become more innovative for some of the project locations that become part of this density strategy. Traditional planning and design methods are not always congruent for intensification, and the drive toward density will necessitate increased plan ingenuity.

Green Is Gold

It does not matter what shade you prefer, because green is gold. Energy efficiency is not on the wish list for home buyers in 2011 — it is on the “must” list. Home buyers are increasingly aware of the rising costs of utilities and equally aware of what home builders can do to provide energy efficient homes with today’s building practices and technologies. Paying to operate a home is as important as paying for a home, and energy efficiency is no longer an upgrade in the mind of a home buyer. So far, the “deeper green” shades, which include renewable products or recycled materials, have not taken hold with the masses in the same way that energy efficiency has. Understanding what “green” means to potential home buyers will ensure that design dollars are invested in the areas where they will provide the best return.

The Top 5 Must Have Features

The 2011 AVID Design Driver study provides extensive detail on the preferences of various home buyer categories — from the first-time buyer to the empty-nester. The study also analyzes the level of importance for specific features in each buyer category. While there are variances within each category, some of the “must have” features that appear desirable across the board include:

Walk-in Closets: In each buyer category studied, the walk-in closet came up as a must.

Energy-Efficient Appliances: This “must have” item is a natural fit with the overall energy efficiency preference of today’s home buyers.

Linen Closets: With the drive towards smaller spaces, the need for storage functionality is increasing and linen closets are an essential element for today’s home designs.

Large Kitchen: The kitchen is truly “base camp” for today’s busy lifestyles, and in order to assume its many roles, this is one area where space is still a preference.

Overall Energy Efficient Home: Mentioned before but worth saying again, today’s home buyers expect an energy efficient home, and this provides home builders with a unique competitive advantage over the resale market.

Not making the top five, but still achieving honorable mention is the increasing trend toward outdoor living spaces. Several home buyer categories indicated a strong preference for features such as outdoor fireplaces and outdoor cooking areas. With this in mind, plan designs should accommodate the increasing desire of home buyers to expand their living spaces beyond the confines of their exterior walls.

Bygone Features

Features that are losing desirability varied among the home buyer categories. However, there are a few items that seem to be losing their appeal across the board, including:

Butler Pantry/Servery: It may be wallets re-opening with improving times that is causing more restaurant goers and less in-home entertainers, but whatever the cause, the preference for the butler pantry/servery is waning.

Whirlpool Tubs: Today’s busy lifestyle may be driving the preference toward larger showers and away from whirlpool tubs.

Formal Living and Dining Rooms: The formal rooms are giving way to the functioning spaces, and single-purpose rooms are losing their luster.

Single-Car Garages: Much like our national anthem, from “far and wide” Canadian’s rely on their vehicles for their busy lifestyles, and home designs offering only single garages are going to be a deterrent to today’s home buyers.

Canadian home buyers have undergone a “reset” in their preferences and priorities following the recent economic upheaval. Home builders must account for these changing design drivers to be successful in plan development and marketing. Understanding what features to invest in, and what features to divest of, will help drive profitability by increasing market appeal and reducing unnecessary costs.

This article only scratches the surface of the research results contained in this year’s AVID Design Driver study. The full 2011 AVID Design Driver study is available here at AvidBuilder.com.

Tim Bailey is general manager of AVID Canada, the leading provider of customer loyalty research and consulting to the home-building industry. Through the AVID system, home builders improve referrals, reduce warranty costs, and strengthen their brands. He can be reached at tim.bailey@avidglobal.ca.