Podcast: The Post-Covid Home: What Fresh Research Reveals About Buyer Demands
In this episode of Women at WIRC, we sit down with Teri Slavik-Tsuyuki of tst ink and Nancy Keenen, CEO of Dahlin Architecture, Planning, and Interiors, to unpack the just-released findings from the America at Home Study.
The data shows what many in housing are missing: the pandemic permanently reshaped how people want to live. Affordability pressures, new household formations, and the rising demand for wellness-focused environments are redefining buyer priorities. Yet, much of the industry is still building for a market that no longer exists.
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Transcript:
Welcome back to Women at Work, where editors from sister media brands, Pro Builder, Pro Remodeler, and Custom Builder sit down with standout women across home building, remodeling, and design. We'll share their stories, their business insights, and explore how women are reshaping the residential building industry.
Pauline Hammerbeck: I'm Pauline Hammerbeck, editor of Custom Builder, and today we're talking about what American home buyers are truly looking for. I'm joined by two researchers behind the America at Home Study, the first national longitudinal survey tracking these post-pandemic changes, now with four waves of data since March 2020.
Teri Slavik-Tsuyuki is founder of tst ink. Terry is a community design and marketing expert who helps developers understand and respond to home buyer preferences. Nancy Keenan is President and CEO of Dahlin Architecture, Planning and Interiors, [00:01:00] and she brings the architect's perspective on how consumer preferences translate into the design of homes and communities.
Thank you and welcome both.
Teri Slavik Tsuyuki: Thank you.
Nancy Keenan: Thanks for having us.
Origins of the America at Home Study
Pauline: As founders of the America at Home Study, you've done something that feels really unique. You've offered hard data on how the pandemic has permanently changed the way that people wanna live. So, tell me, going back to the beginning, what inspired you to undertake the study, and why do you think it continues to be relevant today? Now, five years later?
Teri: I think that's a great question. I mean, what inspired us was really the early days of the pandemic in March of 2020. I grew frustrated that the news media and all thought partners and leaders out in our society as a whole were talking about the impact COVID was having on things like small business travel and tourism, hospitality, airline travel, live sports, and yet all of America, for the most part, was sheltering in place and living their lives and working and schooling from home.[00:02:00]
So, you know, Nancy and I and our third partner, Belinda Sward, who's a consumer research specialist, decided that we should just go out to the American public and ask them what the impact of doing everything from home was having on how they felt about their homes and communities. So really that was the initial impetus.
And then we initially thought we would do sort of an early-stage study and then a post-COVID study. Naively wave two happened in September/October of 2020, and we're still in the middle of the heart of the pandemic. Wave three was at the end of October, 2022, and then wave four was just released … the results were just released last week, and the study was in field in May of 2025 for a total of almost 16,000 US respondents.
Pauline: That's impressive. So tell me, Nancy, what, what surprised you the most of that very first wave, early on, that maybe shaped the subsequent waves.
Nancy: The way people responded to the first wave with both [00:03:00] enthusiasm and thoughtfulness about what home means to them was really the deeply meaningful part of it for us.
They really thought about [it], and they started looking around themselves in their home and reacting to things they may have never seen before because they were spending so much time there, and that made it even more impactful for us and for the results and how we turned that into design later. One of the things that we thought about is often in doing this research … we do research, but we don't necessarily put design behind it.
It's called R and D, but we don't always execute the D, so we were able to take that research and turn it into development. True R&D.
Why the Latest Findings Feel Urgent
Pauline: And, so, you mentioned that this most recent data went live just I think a couple of weeks ago, and it was described as an urgent look at the housing landscape. Why that word urgent?
Teri: Well, I think that … there's a lot of really big insights [00:04:00] in wave four, and what's urgent for us is that, what we've heard from consumers now for five years, largely the industry really hasn't responded to. So, I think in the environment we're in today where finances and economics are a greater concern than ever, what we're seeing is really lack of decision confidence.
So compared to wave three, why we say it's so urgent is more people today, 30% in fact, are reporting a great uncertainty or anxiety when making large purchase decisions. So, for us, that sort of made us step back and say, well, we don't in any way want to be doomsday thinkers or, you know, industry disruptors, of course.
I mean, it's so critical. But really for us, it made us think about fueling the demand for more product clarity, more adaptability, and then cost predictability. We also saw a new trend in experimentation rising. So even with, as I said, the financial constraints, home ownership aspiration is still really high.
65% of non-owners [00:05:00] today told us in the last wave of the study, they intend to buy a home in the next five years. But how they plan on doing that looks really different than it did before. And, so, a growing number of people say they're open to different paths, such as renting to owning. You know, 50% of respondents in wave four said that, up from 33% in wave three … a huge increase in the desire for a smaller home, you know, 40% up from just 21 in wave three.
Same thing with a smaller yard or a smaller or no garage. So, we really feel like this is just cementing evolving consumer priorities.
Wellness remains the top driver of housing decisions even during these challenging financial times with fully 60% of respondents saying it was their number one purchase motivator for choosing a home or a community.
But it's also clearly entwined and wrapped up in other expectations like affordability. So I think the urgent word, frankly, really comes from the consumer decision making that's really thinking now about multiple integrated values.
Affordability as the Key Barrier
Pauline: So, you mentioned affordability. [00:06:00] Um, why don't we zoom in on that for a little bit.
You know, your study identified it as the single biggest barrier for the housing industry right now. And of course, you know, we all see home sales are flat dial …dial into that a little bit. What are some of those affordability issues? What are some of those key economic issues that are holding buyers back right now?
Teri: Yeah, and maybe I'll answer it with a data point first, which is that, you know, 24% of people who were renting today, or who had been homeowners before and now decided to sell the home and become renters, are saying they're doing that because of ongoing maintenance and operating costs. So, you know, Nancy and I talk a lot about, it's not just the initial purchase price of the home, but it's the ongoing operating cost of the home too.
So that leads us into, you know, the work that she and her team do, and which I'll let her speak to in terms of better design around smaller and more efficient homes.
Pauline: Can I touch on that operating cost angle? You mentioned [that] it's not just affordability in terms of affording to, to buy [00:07:00] into the home.
It's that long-term issue like insurance … utilities. Should the industry be alarmed by that? What should the industry be thinking about this dual nature of affordability.
Teri: Well, I mean, I don't know if we should be alarmed about it. I think we should be more cognizant of it, and I think we should be innovating design solutions that create places and spaces that are more efficiently, more humanly, designed and more affordable to operate long term. I mean, my house insurance costs went up four times in the last year and a half.
So, it's happening everywhere, and I think that there's a Bank Rate study that I saw last week that said the hidden operating costs of a home can be $20,000 to $30,000 more a year. That's another mortgage payment! So, if we keep building homes that are larger than people want for larger family formations that aren't the norm anymore, when 64% of [00:08:00] us are one in two person households, we're really not addressing the affordability solution.
Nancy: Another way to look at it, is … people want affordability with value. They want smarter homes that have right-size design. They're paired with modern materials that are cost effective to maintain efficient systems, including air and water. There's, some great data points on what people are looking for in air and water quality.
They want us to deliver on affordability without compromising on the quality of the home or the wellness it provides. So, if the home makes you sick, stressed, isolated, and it isn't affordable, no matter what the price tag is.
So, I think it's important to think about that, those ongoing costs can be built into the home if it's smarter to begin with.
Pauline: Right. I mean, in some cases, you know, in the instance of utilities, let's say that's a bit more difficult. It's an outside factor. Electricity right now is … rising demand is going through the roof with all this AI and [00:09:00] these data centers. I wonder what your thoughts are … I know the NAHB came out a week or two ago commenting on the rise of natural gas bans.
For instance, New York just put in a policy where all new housing had to be all-electric. What are your thoughts on whether this is the right time for that? Are we gonna exacerbate affordability?
Nancy: So, it's a really interesting dilemma because people asked for the importance of air filtration; a data point: It increased from 48% to 69%. That's a significant jump of folks who are caring about the air quality in their home. And what happens with some of these bans sometimes is they aren't really talking about one of the effects of banning natural gas. It's not just about the source of electricity, it's about the air quality in the home.
You can put air filtration monitors in your home, turn on the gas stove and immediately see it start to spike. [00:10:00] And so here we are. There's, there's a dichotomy in the way it's being explained that could be … if there was more cognizance of that … how this feeds into how people feel about air quality in their home. It could be tied directly to something like the bans on natural gas.
Pauline: And you had touched about this, Terry, that, for some Americans, ownership may not even be the goal anymore. What, what did your data show about the shifts towards renting or maybe even some of those non-traditional approaches to home ownership?
Teri: Yeah. I mean, we saw a 9% drop in people who said that home equals a place I own. Which, you know, to me was eyeopening. I mean, I think we've asked that question every single time… to sort of see a 9% drop in that, and then to see a representative increase in people who want different rental options, or, as I said earlier, a new entirely new model, like a rent-to-own option.
I think it just again, says that when this is the most expensive purchase you're going [00:11:00] to make in your life; it's not just the purchase price, it's the ongoing operating cost. So, I think there's a real opportunity for some new models; build-to-rent, some different ways of thinking about product that addresses how people are living today, which is different than we live 50 years ago.
Pauline: Your data also pointed to a demographic shift and I think it was 64% of US households are now just one and two person households. That's a pretty surprising shift. Nancy, would you say that the current housing stock is ideal for that household size?
Nancy: Absolutely not. We're still operating on decades old philosophies of large families in a home and designing to that, designing to, you know, the bedroom counts and the size of a large family.
It's a cultural lag. There's a narrative that we're making assumptions of the building for the nuclear family with a big house and a yard, so. The typologies aren't following the consumer [00:12:00] evolution. Terry had the stat on how many single person house households there are, and then that's deliver and that, and they don't necessarily need the same number of rooms or spaces or large yards.
So, it's a mindset that have to shift. We have to, if we're not meeting the needs of the population, we're just creating more barriers to housing.
Design Opportunities for Smaller Households
Pauline: And, so, from a design standpoint, what kind of opportunities does this open up? Whether it's from home size or maybe floor plans, what should we be thinking about?
Nancy: We should be thinking about flexible design. We should be thinking more about spaces and how we use the spaces, and we should be thinking about a room. We did something like this at the Picket Fence, when, it was a concept home designed with data of wave three of the study. And it was built on a set of core design principles instead of necessarily talking just about rooms, but about spaces.
The family room is the heart of the home. Primary bedroom is a precious personal space. [00:13:00] Kitchens are for cooking and a whole lot more hanging out with friends, challenge the way your kitchen works. We saw a lot of that coming out in this data. No dead corners, square footage use where it makes sense.
It's just a different way of thinking about flexibility over time. If that's a large investment, it's not just for today. You may be buying that home. You want it to flex with you and how you live over time.
Pauline: So, as I'm listening, it sounds like there's definitely a bit of a mismatch, but an opportunity. But I thought we could touch on … I saw that your data also talked about, despite homes being unaffordable, there are certain features or certain trade-offs, people are willing to make, to get into a home.
So, what trade-offs did you hear that people are willing to make, in terms of whether it's size or features? What did the data show us?
Teri: It relates to what we've talked about already. So, the rent-to-own option is [00:14:00] huge. In order of priority, it was a suburban location, different or less expensive location, the rent to own option. There are a lot of people, more so than in the previous study, willing to purchase an older resale home. A home with a smaller yard size, a smaller home overall, a home with smaller or no garage and then, you know, different construction technologies like a modular home that might ultimately end up being a healthier home or a manufactured home that may end up being one that's easier and faster to construct. So that would bring the cost down. So those are the sorts of things that we saw.
We also asked a new question in wave four, which was if you had $50,000 to spend on on your home, and we gave them a list of about 30 different factors and said, pick the top three things, you would spend $50,000 on your home.
And I think this question is really illuminating as well, and it relates to your energy question earlier. And the answers were, number one: a better equipped and more modern kitchen for cooking. And then, here's where it gets fun: energy efficiency, things like HVAC, insulation, lighting [00:15:00] and appliances, clean water, whole house water filtration, clean air, whole house air filtration, a solar battery storage or backup power generator.
And then energy production, solar. So that five of the top six things relate to energy consumption, efficiency or production, which I think is fascinating.
Affordability as the Key Barrier
Pauline: It ties back to the issue of affordability. I think that we've been sort of running as a thread here. Were there similar feedback in terms of what people would be willing to, to pay extra for on a community level as well?
Teri: We didn't ask about whether they would pay extra in a community level. We asked about community features that would influence their decision to choose one community over another. And I think this also relates back to the wellness factor again. So, um, it's interesting … nature and open space for activities and trails was, was the number one community activity, and 54% said it would be very likely to influence their purchase decision.
But [00:16:00] exciting, I think for many of us that have been talking about social wellness and social connectivity for some time is a walkable coffee shopper. Casual cafe actually rose to number two, and it rose above trails in importance just above, but it rose above trails. So when you think about, you know, 30% of us are working from home all the time, or at least on a regular hybrid schedule … offering places to connect in the community are, are things that people are deciding on about where they'll live versus communities and may have the more traditional, you know, large bifurcated roads with empty clubhouses that sit in the middle and aren't used on a Tuesday afternoon at one o'clock in the afternoon.
So I think those are really interesting things. Small neighborhood parks, large parks with event space, those sorts of things. Farmer's markets, it's all around connection and, and time together within the community. And I think that's what people are looking for today more than ever. And it's almost a, a new definition of wellness.
Pauline: Traditionally we think of it more as health, you mentioned trails went down, and [00:17:00] instead of personal health, wellness is taking a much broader definition of, like you said, connection and community and sort of the, the mental health and the, those issues now.
Teri: Yeah, I think what's happening, and I love that observation. I think what's happening is that home builders and community developers are recognizing that wellness in the built environment no longer just means green and sustainability and walkability, physical wellbeing, but it means all the domains of wellness.
And truly wellness real estate is designed on the ground up on purpose, right? To deliver on physical wellbeing, social wellbeing, mental wellbeing, financial wellbeing, which we've talked a lot about during this conversation. Environmental wellbeing, and then civic and community wellbeing. How do we relate to each other as humans?
So all of those factors. Consumers are asking us to think about from the ground up and how we build places. 85% of our health outcomes are based on our, our built environment, which is how and where we live. So it's pretty critical.
Pauline: And just the [00:18:00] prominence of wellness in your findings tells me that it's no longer just, you know, a nice to have.
It really feels like it's kind of tipped into baseline expectations at this point. Is that what you've found?
Nancy: Absolutely. Consumers now expect it. They expect that their house is gonna provide them the cleaner air filtration, natural light, um, energy efficiency. It's not just delivering this through the architecture and the systems as optional.
It's vital at this point. So, the top motivator for the upgrades for air filtration and, and efficiency is that it improves my health and wellness 60% up from 43% in the last study.
Pauline: That’s a huge shift. So would you characterize this as an urgent shift for the home building industry to make that change [00:19:00] and begin incorporating wellness in all manifestations, like you mentioned … natural light …. all these manifestations of wellness into every single project.
Nancy: And to talk about it, right? As they include these features, talk about how it makes us feel. People are, sometimes, it's inherent when they walk into a room and they feel the natural light.
But to talk about it … we've provided, instead of window counts, we've provided natural light in each of these rooms that helps you to feel more connected to nature. Uh, it's that sort of shift in language and thinking that would be really beneficial for builders to, to pay attention to.
Teri: And I wanna just come back to your word urgent. I do think that is urgent because as I mentioned, you know, 85% of our health outcomes are based on the built environment. And one of the things, the questions we've been asking every wave of the study is we've asked consumers to tell us on each domain of wellness how important it is in their life.[00:20:00]
Then how satisfied do they feel with their own personal level of achievement? And so we're able to track that delta between importance and satisfaction across five years of data. And sadly, even though we've come out of a global health pandemic, what I can tell you is that our satisfaction of various domains of wellness has continued to drop year over year, specifically in areas with financial wellness, physical, emotional, and mental wellness.
So the challenge is huge, and the opportunity is even bigger.
Pauline: And the opportunity for housing to be sort of a physical way that people can improve those personal elements; I think that's sort of a new way of thinking about it. Um, one thing I wanted to touch on is that one of you brought up the American Picket Fence Idea Home.
And what I love about this study is that it's not just theory, it's not just insights that we're putting out there, but you built an actual home that reflects these findings that reflects what Americans say they want. [00:21:00] Tell us a little bit about that project. It's in Pennsylvania … but tell us what it looks like and and what are some of the key insights that were delivered in that project.
Nancy: It was built from wave three of the study. We actually built a concept home based on an earlier wave as well in North Carolina, with Garmin Homes. This was built on, I mentioned earlier, the set of core design principles for the picket fence. There was an attainability feature to it where it's actually a dual set of homes.
There's an ADU unit on the bottom. And a two-story unit above that allows more than one family to be able to live within a lot. So there's an attainability feature built in. We thought about the home in terms of spaces. That's where we thought about the family room as the heart of the home, the primary bedrooms or the precious personal space, how we look at the kitchen, at the center of the home for gathering and then outdoors … when you're in a multi-level home like this, how does the [00:22:00] outdoor relationship happen. So, there's actually outdoor decks for relationship to the street, eyes on the street for walkability. Um, there's a number of things we thought about that we take all of it together as we redesign in these concept charettes, what are the most number of features that we can address with what we're hearing from the study? People feel safe when they've got eyes on the street, for instance.
Pauline: Were there any surprises between what people said they wanted and what was actually feasible to build?
Nancy: There's always limitations. And so by building this with … we tested building this in a modular environment as a study, from a factory. And, so, there's limitations when you're building that way. But if you're trying to achieve efficiency and affordability, working within limitations sometimes makes a better, smarter home than if you've got all the space in the world to do it.
So we actually prefer to work in a way where we're using those challenges to try [00:23:00] to still meet, because you still wanna meet the the needs of people regardless of the size of the home or regardless of the way it's constructed.
Pauline: And were there certain features or certain priorities that were non-negotiable, that you just knew had to be incorporated?
Nancy: Air quality and water quality were both very important in that home. And so we made sure that we were using systems that answered those quality issues. We also know that when you're designing a home that's smaller like this, you wanna be able to design for how people actually live in those spaces.
And so … those were non-negotiable as well.
Teri: I think the intentionality behind some of the flex spaces in both the ADU down below that had a small workspace in the single bedroom. It was essentially a studio unit and then the flex spaces in the two-story town home. One of the things I know that Nancy’s team spent a lot of time thinking about was the insight that the primary bedroom, as she said a minute ago, [00:24:00] was really precious personal space and the feedback we've had from industry visitors and from consumers when they've actually walked into the primary bedroom in the Picket Fence, which has this beautiful extra sort of seclusion space with beautiful views and the siting of the windows were very intentional.
I think that was a space that we really nailed. And when I go back and look at it now, that was surprising to me how much effort and attention we put into that as a design feature, Nancy, but how it paid off.
Nancy: And we're actually working with the folks who are living in the home to give us feedback over time as well. So there will be real-time feedback of what it feels like to live in the home. What did they expect from it, and then how did that actually work for them?
Pauline: And well, also now of course, with this new set of data, is there anything that you would do differently or anything that's new that you would incorporate into a future idea home? A future concept home?
Nancy: Each time we do this, we think about who the consumer will be. We look at different characteristics [00:25:00] of who the consumer might be and adapt. So I don't know that there's anything specific other than really emphasizing the wellness and being able to talk about what it means to have true natural light.
The indoor-outdoor connections and how you can still have attainability. That's really always the key, is being able to have all the things that you believe you should have in your home and still be able to afford to buy it and to maintain it over time.
Teri: Yeah. And one of the other things that we did in, in asking people what their favorite room was in their home, we asked questions around why that was important or why that was their favorite home.
And the third origin partner of our study, Belinda Sward, who I mentioned earlier, is an absolute data analysis fiend. And, so, she will dive in … we'll select a core buyer group … the study was partnered with Kantar Consulting, using their mind based consumer segmentation tool for the last three waves.
So we know not just [00:26:00] generationally, but we know which Millennial segment says what and which Gen X segment says what, and so on. We have Gen Z data this time as well. So, what we'll do as a team is select a targeted mind based segment that we'll design and build the next concept homes for. And then Belinda will dig into the data at that consumer segment level.
And so we'll be able to provide Dahlin’s design team with insights around how this buyer spends time in this part of the home versus how some other buyer might. So it's very focused and it gives us the chance to really bring it to life.
Nancy: So she'll dive into like the flexibility of how often are you working from home? And so even now, up to 50% of the people are still working from home and at least 30% have a regular hybrid schedule. So how do they want to spend time? You know, is that a separate workspace? Can you be flexible and combine with other spaces? She really digs in and gets all that data for us so that we can design to that … those features.
Pauline: I love that. I love how granular you can get with it all. [00:27:00] So we've talked about what Americans want. We've talked a little bit about how you can build around that. So, to wrap up, maybe let's talk a little bit about what it means for the industry going forward. So, Nancy, maybe you have some thoughts here. If builders and residential designers want stay relevant, what should they be prioritizing in design today?
Nancy: It's a different mindset in the way they, I believe, they should be prioritizing how they look at design … in thinking in terms of what a consumer wants from the design of their home is a different way of thinking.
Starting from scratch again and maybe looking from the ground up. What is it we should be delivering that meets all of these criteria? Rather than often reusing many of the same plans they've used for years and may sell really quickly. You know, we don't necessarily know the reasons why that may happen for them when it [00:28:00] does, but it could be because there's a lack of options, or a lack of choice.
You know? How much do people wanna change in their homes? We know that from the data over the years. To be able to take a step back and take a different mindset, thinking about how consumers have changed, how family formations have changed, how we could actually provide more attainability and affordability without just necessarily shrinking the house. There are other ways to do that.
Pauline: I know challenges always come up; I know urban lots in particular and infill projects are a challenge … are there thoughts you had on how to incorporate these ideas of wellness and flexibility and affordability within maybe some of these smaller challenging project types?
Nancy: There's actually a project type that is starting to catch on, so to speak, and is successful at achieving some of this. In fact, one of the data points that Terri mentioned earlier, that people are willing to accept smaller or no garages, that's actually translating [00:29:00] into cottage homes being very popular, and I think it's more than just the garage, where these may have an attached one-car garage or detached garages. But what it allows you to do is create cottages around a courtyard, so to speak. And so now not only have you … you're giving up attached garage … but what you're gaining is a sense of community around this courtyard. And you're willing to take a smaller home with a big porch.
So you're sitting out on the porch, you're getting to know your neighbors, and you're connecting, having all the connections that make you feel your sense of social connectivity and wellness. And you're willing to give up a garage for it. When if you were to ask builders, they'll often assume we have to have that four to 500 square foot footprint for the garage in order to sell a house.
Maybe you don't. And we're even seeing this, very popular in the Pacific Northwest where you would think the weather would have some impact, but we have a number of cottage communities that are selling out pretty quickly and you can immediately walk into the community and see the [00:30:00] impact on how you might feel or how it might feel to live there.
Pauline: Looking ahead five, 10 years out, would you say any of the themes that you uncovered from this latest data set, you know, wellness, flexibility, smaller homes, do you see any of these accelerating more than the others in the next five, 10 years?
Teri: I think so. I think that the wellness theme is not going away. You know, 60 is the new 40; 80 is the new 60. People are talking about health spans, not lifespans, and longevity, and thinking about things in much more health-focused ways. So, I think that it's really a systemic solution we need to look at, and it's gonna require developers and builders that have these frontline consumer insights to convince the jurisdictions that, as Nancy said, smaller homes don't mean cheaper, right?
They don't mean cheaper crappier product, and tighter streets don't mean that they're not still drivable and good for EMS and fire use. I think it's really gonna require us all thinking about this together. In what better way … I mean, if we aren't creating places that help people [00:31:00] live happier, healthier lives, then you know, what are we doing right?
That's kind of the fundamental reason that we should be involved in this industry; it’s the most noble profession, quite frankly.
Pauline: I love that. That's a great place to end, you know, Nancy Terry, thank you so much. Listeners, you can explore the full study and download infographics as well at Americaathome.com.
See you next time.
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