HOW WORKING FROM HOME IS CHANGING THE WAY WE LIVE Meridith Baer Founder & CEO, Meridith Baer Home

// HOW WORKING FROM HOME IS CHANGING THE WAY WE LIVE

Meridith Baer, Founder & CEO, Meridith Baer Home

What can the real estate industry do to provide a better pathway for women and for minorities to get to the top levels of the business?

I know that when I started my business, I couldn’t get a loan. So I actually had to build my company without any financing. The good news is I grew it and I have no debt. But I think you’re talking about really providing financing for women and minorities and making a point of wanting to be inclusive in your hiring and also, I think, dealing. I also think education is paramount—going into schools and teaching young people about things that they can do in life that maybe they’ve never thought about. To me, those are the important avenues.

How can people make their current homes more functional with this new environment?

I think the home office is more important than it ever was because I think we’re finding we’re spending a lot of time in our offices working at home. For builders, I think built-in desks are great in kitchens and other different rooms. Also, I’m wondering now if that whole idea of open space is going to be re-looked at. Maybe we need rooms where we can close the door and have privacy to conduct our business in different rooms.

I do think every room has to be thought of as one where someone can be conducting a meeting, especially in families where there are three or four people living in one home. Also the outdoor spaces, how those could be used to work in the nice weather that we have in certain parts of the country. But more than anything, home itself is more important than it ever was during this pandemic. We realize how important it is to really have an environment that we love and can enjoy.

I think going forward, more and more people will decide to work at home because they’re getting used to it and they’ve found that all that time they’ve spent driving could be spent with their families. So I think I really believe that the home industry is just going to take off like gangbusters. I think we’re right now moving out of more homes than we

ever have. They’re selling so quickly we can hardly keep up. Home matters more than ever.

What will restaurants in the future look like? And also what are we going to do with all this vacant retail space?

I’m not ready to give up on our finding an anecdote to this virus and going back to life as normal. I still hold out hope that we’re going to get past this, and going to go back to life, and appreciate everything that we’ve had much more profoundly. Otherwise, what do we do with all of that space?

Maybe it becomes more living space. Maybe it becomes schools. Maybe it becomes homeless shelters. I don’t know, but I still can’t give up the thought that this is going to pass.

What are new considerations and forces architects should be listening to so that they can design more inclusive and accessible cities and dwellings of the future?

I think what people want is they want a sense of community. And I think that builders should listen to that and think about when they do buildings, when they do come up with a plan, how can they help the community and create a sense of community in terms of what they build. So I think within each community, we need to think about education, exercise, and all of these things—what can we add to this community when we build what we’re going to build?