CONTRACTORS GUIDE SPRING 2021 A DAILY RECORD PUBLICATION
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CONTRACTORS GUIDE SPRING 2021 | A DAILY RECORD PUBLICATION
Keep your home in order to de-stress your life................................................................. P7 Replace a fossil fuel furnace to lower emissions — and your bills .............................P8 Pandemic creates longer waits for home appliances.....................................................P10 Why you shouldn’t think of a home as an investment ....................................................P12 New type of home equity loan caters to major renovation projects ........................P14 For office furniture sellers during a pandemic, there’s no place like home ...........P16 Real estate Q&A: Can afford home, but not repairs .......................................................P18 Rethinking the single-family home dream............................................................................P21 ‘Work from anywhere’ is here to stay ..................................................................................P24
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Replace a fossil fuel furnace to lower emissions — and your bills By Todd Woody Bloomberg News Whether you want to reduce the greenhouse gases your home produces or lower the cost of your utilities, a heat pump might seem like a good idea. Here are some important factors to consider before you make a purchase. IT’S A HEATER AND AN AIR CONDITIONER The most commonly installed are air-source heat pumps, which resemble air conditioner units that sit outside your house. During winter, a liquid refrigerant in a copper coil extracts heat from the atmosphere as warm air naturally moves toward the cold. The heat transforms the refrigerant into a cold gas and a compressor then pressurizes the gas, raising its temperature and heating the air inside the house. The reverse happens in hot months, when heat inside the house is absorbed and transferred outside. That’s increasingly useful Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
in temperate areas of the U.S., where people typically don’t have air conditioners but are being hit with climate-change-fueled heat waves. KNOW WHAT TYPE OF HEAT PUMP YOU NEED In the U.S., air-source heat pumps are especially well-suited to the Southeast and the West, where winters tend to be mild. Claire McKenna, a senior associate at the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, says technology improvements now allow heat pumps to operate effectively even in cold climates. But in regions where temperatures routinely drop below zero degrees Celsius, they’ll need to be equipped with a heated coil to provide extra warmth on frigid days. That would consume more electricity. One alternative is a geothermal heat pump, which extracts heat from the Earth. Geothermal heat pumps cost $10,000 to $25,000 — a lot of that is the 8
expense of digging trenches for the necessary underground pipe system — but they can reduce energy costs by 70%. Regardless of the type, you’ll need to decide whether you want to use your home’s existing air ducts or install a so-called ductless system, in which heater units are placed in individual rooms. A heat pump will warm your house as well as a fossil fuel furnace, though its efficiency decreases in colder climates. AN ENERGY-SIPPING MONEY SAVER Since heat pumps transfer heat from one place to another rather than generate it through the combustion of fossil fuels, they’re up to four times more efficient than a natural gas furnace, depending on the local climate, according to a Rocky Mountain Institute analysis. Equipment and installation costs typically run from $4,000 to $12,000 for an air-source heat pump, depending on the size
of the pump, the brand, and whether you use a ductless system. That compares with $2,000 to $6,000 for a gas furnace, but the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that a heat pump can lower a homeowner’s energy costs by hundreds of dollars a year. Meanwhile, a study published in October in the journal Nature Energy found that houses with heat pumps get a premium of as much as $17,000 on average when they sell. The environment also benefits: A 2018 paper published in the Electricity Journal found that air-source heat pumps could reduce household greenhouse gas emissions from heating in California by as much as 54%.
MAKE SURE YOU’RE GETTING YOUR TAX BREAKS AND REBATES The federal government offers a tax credit of up to $300 for Energy Star-rated air-source heat pumps, but it expires on Dec. 31, 2020. Qualifying geothermal heat pumps are eligible for a 26% tax credit if they’re installed before Jan. 1, 2021. The tax credit declines to 22% for systems that come online between Dec. 31, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2022. Some states also offer incentives for air-source heat pumps, such as a rebate of as much as $1,500 in Maine, 0% financing and rebates in Massachusetts, and a $1,000 rebate in New York.
DO AN ENERGY AUDIT FIRST The cost savings from a heat pump will go out the window if your windows and doors are leaky and your walls aren’t well insulated; the same goes for your ducts. Before installing a pump, hire an energy auditor to detect and plug leaks. The size of the pump depends on a home’s energy demand_you don’t want to spend more money on a bigger unit just to keep a drafty house warm.
CHOOSE A CONTRACTOR CAREFULLY “The biggest barrier right now to adoption of heat pumps is contractor readiness,” McKenna says. “I hear time and time again from people who have talked to five contractors and only one is willing to install a heat pump. The lack of competition drives up costs.” Shop around, and check to see if your utility or state rebate program lists recommended installers. Northeast Energy Efficiency
Partnerships publishes a guide to choosing a contractor and the questions you should ask. A HEAT PUMP CAN ALSO REPLACE A GAS WATER HEATER There are air-source heat pump water heaters. Another option is a device called a desuperheater, which can funnel excess energy from a geothermal system to a water tank. A 50-gallon heat pump water heater costs about $1,300, vs. $500 for a conventional water heater. Heat pump water heaters qualify for a $300 federal tax credit, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that a typical household will save $330 in annual energy costs. States and utilities also offer rebates for heat pump water heaters_California utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. gives customers a $300 rebate. The state this year approved a $44.7 million program to promote the adoption of heat pump water heaters, which could reduce residential greenhouse gas emissions from heating water as much as 70%, according to the 2018 Electricity Journal study.
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Pandemic creates longer waits for home appliances By Nedra Rhone The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ATLANTA — Just a few weeks after closing on a new home in East Atlanta, Amy Miller and her husband decided to purchase a new washer and dryer. They ordered a top load washing machine and a dryer from Home Depot in mid-September, expecting the appliances to be delivered about a week after their scheduled move-in. But upon completing the order, they learned the appliances would take almost a month to get to their new home. “When those dates came up, I was like are you kidding me?” Miller said. “I was taken aback. I was like how do they expect us to wash our clothes?” Appliances are just one of many consumer items in short supply due to the coronavirus pandemic. Industry experts said back orders remain high after manufacturing plants experienced shutdowns, both in the U.S. and abroad. Increased demand and production slowdowns have resulted in six-toeight-week delays on some products, Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
according to retailers. “The customers are scratching their heads about how did COVID affect this?” said Jimmy Moore, a salesman at Bob Bailey’s Appliance store in Stone Mountain, Ga. “When a plant shuts down, it never comes back up like it is supposed to. Now with social distancing, where they may have had 10 to 15 people on a line, now it is impossible ... you have five people doing that job.” Moore noted a facility in North Carolina that churned out 1,000 dishwashers a day pre-pandemic but is now down to about 200 per day. “What was 5,000 at the end of the week is now only 1,000, so you are 4,000 in the hole,” he said. Whitney Welch, spokeswoman for GE Appliances, which has more than 2,000 employees in Georgia, said the company is fully operational. “We paused plant operations for one week at the beginning of the pandemic to enhance safety precautions inside our facilities. We have not shut down production since that time and are manufacturing appliances here in the U.S. around the 10
clock,” she said. But the company has seen record demand on certain product categories since COVID-19 began and people began spending more time at home. Freezer sales outpaced supply beginning in March as consumers stockpiled goods, and demand remains at an unprecedented level, Welch said. Usage of appliances is higher than ever before as people have spent more time with their families under one roof cooking, cleaning and storing food. Additional interest in remodeling and home improvements has sparked orders as well. “Our supply chain is working and we have continued to produce, distribute, deliver and service appliances as an essential business during this time. As we work to meet demand, consumers may find that certain products are taking longer to be delivered,” Welch said. Moore has been sending notes to customers apologizing for the extensive delays and back orders, some of which may not be filled until the end of the year, he said. In order to help customers avoid long waits — especially those
who have experienced an appliance failure and need an immediate replacement — Moore tells them right off which models the store can quickly locate. At Mitchell Appliance Co. in Douglasville, Ga., which primarily deals with GE branded products, co-owner Vickie Mitchell said the worst was in May when it seemed every product they requested was on back order. They had to rely on previously ordered items to meet the increased demand. “We would place a large order and only get three pieces,” she said. “I am pretty much taking whatever I can get.” In October, Consumer Reports found that among major appliance retailers such as Best Buy, Home Depot and Sears, almost a third of 24-inch dishwashers were out of stock, compared to about a fifth at the beginning of the year, according to Gap Intelligence, a market-research company. Thirty-seven% of refrigerators of all types were unavailable on retailers’ websites last
month, which was about double the 19% seen in January. Miller said she considered other options after learning about the long delays at Home Depot, including searching other retailer websites or purchasing a washer and dryer in-store and picking it up instead of having it delivered, but every option had a drawback — other stores had similar wait times and buying in-store meant accepting mismatched models or a smaller selection of brands. In the end, she washed every item of clothing for her family of four before moving. Her backup plan to use the neighborhood coin laundry during offpeak hours never had to be implemented. They received their new appliances in late October, she said. With back orders still high and no relief in sight possibly until mid-2021, some retailers are shifting their expectations and their businesses. Raymond Garcia, co-owner of V&G Appliance Depot in Norcross, Ga., has been in
business for 10 years. Their 14,000-square-foot warehouse was once filled with 10 truckloads of appliances right next to their 11,000-square-foot retail store, Garcia said. When the pandemic hit, they were reluctant to accept any new merchandise, but after the government issued supplemental unemployment benefits, customers flocked to the store. “In 2.5 to 3 months, they wiped out everything. When we went back to get more (appliances), they said, ‘Sorry, production has stopped,’ “ Garcia said. He was lucky to get 30% of his new orders but suppliers are backed up until January, he said. If shipments don’t pick up by the end of this month, Garcia said they will plan to diversify the merchandise in the store. “If we don’t see anything shipping, we are going to split the store and keep appliances on one side and fill the other with furniture to be able to pay rent and bills and survive until things take another turn,” Garcia said.
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Why you shouldn’t think of a home as an investment By Arianne Cohen Rate.com As investments go, the home you live in is likely a bad one. “From a rate of return standpoint, your primary residence tends to only appreciate a little bit faster than the rate of inflation,” says Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate. com. Translation: The home you bought for $400,000 in 2010 that is now worth $500,000? Inflation alone would put it at about $480,000. During that same period, the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500, slightly more than doubled. Yes, yes, there’s leverage in real estate. We’ll get to that below. But, no, homes don’t lead the pack in investment results. Yet we fawn over real estate because it’s Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
visible. We can see it and brag about it and host in it and inherit it and, most importantly, gooseneck at others’ homes, with the supposed values conveniently posted on the Internet. This is not the same as stashing money smartly. This is not what people want to hear about their biggest asset. But there are so many downsides to residential real estate that I’m having difficulty choosing which to expound upon here. And I say this as someone who owns two properties. First, consider risk. As investments go, residential real estate is dicey. It locks up your money, leaving you at the whims of the market or banks when you want to actually access your cash. And as contractors will tell you, you don’t know what you own until you 12
tear into the walls. Just ask my friend who recently spent $80,000 to repair incessant flooding in a 10-year-old house. Justin Pierce, a Virginia real estate investor and agent, points out that homes are rather complicated structures. “All the trades are involved, and then on the transaction side, it’s real estate agents, attorneys, accountants, a home inspector.” These people are essential, and they cost money and your time. Annual upkeep typically costs around 1% of the home value (no bond or stock requires an annual deposit) — and much more if you like landscaping or cleanliness or hot tubs. And your attempts to add value to the property will likely just drain your wallet. The expense of a new kitchen or bathroom is rarely recouped in the
that after inflation, you’ve actually lost money (but had a place to live). “And it’s a disaster when asset prices go down,” McBride says. By any measure, this is not a winning investment. The sweet spot, then, is to purchase the minimum that you need, and invest other money elsewhere. By our math, skipping an extra bedroom can earn you $500,000 over time: https:// www.rate.com/research/news/richer-retirement “It’s really dangerous to go looking for a home primarily as an investment,” Pierce says. “That can encourage people to overpay and get in trouble in the long run, or buy something that doesn’t really fit their family’s needs. And then they end up having to move, which creates more cost.” Another cost! Moving is expensive. My recent move cost $1,400, plus new places inevitably need some immediate work, which in my case was a $5,000 interior paint job. (The walls were tapioca yellow. The whole place.
sale price. What about all those people on TV who seem to be flush with cash from real estate deals? They’re spending someone else’s money. Primary homes are typically profitable in a few scenarios: If someone else (a renter, your parents, etc.) is paying off the mortgage; or if the property is generating a cash flow (Airbnb, roommates, seasonal rental, TV/film set leasing); or, as too many of us assume will happen, if the home’s market value appreciates substantially. In the latter scenario, a mortgage can make wealth seem to magically spring forth. A $200,000 home with a $40,000 down payment (here’s the leverage) that rises in value by 20% over three years means you’ve doubled your initial investment to $80,000, right? But over that time, you’ve also paid $25,000 in mortgage costs (including tax deductions), plus selling fees and taxes that will typically cost 8-10% of the home value — meaning
Yes.) Plus I spent a pile on essential furniture, and let’s be real: Did I work much in the weeks surrounding the move? No. I was too busy applying room labels that turned out to be nonremovable on expensive furniture. The total move cost easily topped $10,000. A useful rule of thumb: You can likely afford a home that is 3.5 times your annual income(s) with 20% down, and less than that if you pay significant expenses such as tuition or debt payments, says certified financial planner Dana Levit, owner of Paragon Financial Advisors. “That essentially leaves you with enough money to live on.” This equation can be challenging in expensive neighborhoods. Just remember: No one gets filthy rich on a house or two. Lots of people have grown immensely wealthy through seed investing or stock trading (careful) or starting a business — and then they buy real estate when they have money to burn.
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New type of home equity loan caters to major renovation projects Bankrate.com Brandon Segal was set to make a substantial addition to his historic house in a Philadelphia suburb, but he wasn’t sure how to pay for it. He didn’t have enough equity to cover the six-figure renovation bill with a home equity line of credit or a cash-out refinance. A construction loan struck Segal as complicated and cumbersome. Segal settled on a home equity loan through RenoFi, a financial technology company that connects homeowners with credit unions willing to loan based on how much a house will be worth after upgrades are completed. “I like the ability to borrow based on what my appraised value is going to be,” Segal says. RenoFi served as a matchmaker, directing Segal to Ardent Credit Union, a Philadelphia lender. He took a 20-year, fixed-rate loan to pay for a two-story addition to his 1920s home. HOME IMPROVEMENT TAKES OFF DURING THE PANDEMIC The coronavirus pandemic has turned home improvement into a national pastime. In one illustration of that trend, the National Association of Home Builders’ remodeling index soared during the pandemic. Home-improvement retailers and remodeling contractors reported spikes in business. Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
With many Americans working from their home offices, more homeowners have developed a hankering for upgrades to their spaces. Meanwhile, a spike in home prices and a shortage of homes for sale limits the choices available to those who’d traditionally be move-up buyers. The national median price of homes sold by Realtors spiked 12.9 percent from December 2019 to December 2020. Housing inventory fell to a record low, according to the National Association of Realtors. Segal, for his part, loves the house he shares with his wife and their three daughters, but the quarters were getting cramped. He found a contractor to add a master bedroom and other living space to the house. Paying for home improvements can pose a challenge, however. A home equity line of credit (HELOC) is one tried-and-true source of renovation funds. But HELOCs work only for homeowners with significant equity. If you owe $300,000 on your $400,000 property, a bank is unlikely to lend $100,000 through a HELOC. To keep your loan-to-equity level at 80 percent, or $320,000, you’d be able to borrow just $20,000. RenoFi offers a different approach: Homeowners can borrow up to 90 percent of their home’s after-renovation 14
value. The company has partnered with credit unions throughout the country to offer the loans, says Justin Goldman, founder and chief executive of RenoFi. Goldman launched the company after experiencing firsthand the challenges of paying for renovations on an older home. He created RenoFi to fill what he sees as a gap in the market. Goldman found most lenders didn’t offer after-renovation loans, so he began persuading credit unions to add RenoFi home equity loans to their offerings. HOW RENOFI LOANS WORK RenoFi loans are second mortgages. In one example, Ardent Credit Union offers 20-year loans at a fixed rate of 4.25 percent, Goldman says. That’s higher than the rate on a primary mortgage, but it includes the flexibility of allowing homeowners to borrow against yet-tobe-created value. Borrowers pay for an appraisal that establishes the home’s value after renovation. The appraiser looks at the proposed construction plan and determines by how much the work will boost the property’s market value. The typical RenoFi customer borrows $150,000, Goldman says. At that amount, a 20-year loan with a 4.25 percent interest rate carries a monthly payment of $929.
Goldman says RenoFi’s loans also appeal to homeowners who recently locked in loans at rock-bottom levels and don’t want to do a cash-out refinance to pay for improvements. “If you’ve taken advantage of a low rate and refinanced, you’re going to have to pay all those closing costs again,” Goldman says. That situation applied to Segal, the Philadelphia-area homeowner. He had recently refinanced and didn’t want to do so again. “We have a great rate on our current mortgage, and we didn’t want to touch that,” he says. To land a RenoFi loan, the borrower pays for the after-renovation appraisal, which typically costs $100 to $200 more than a standard appraisal, Goldman says. Beyond that, closing costs typically range between $95 and $500. “Credit unions’ closing costs are typically lower than a traditional bank, so in the end, it’s still cheaper for the homeowner,” Goldman says.
OTHER WAYS TO PAY FOR HOME IMPROVEMENTS RenoFi’s loans are one of several options for homeowners looking to renovate. Among the others: • Home equity lines of credit. HELOCs come with one significant caveat: To borrow against your house, you must have plenty of home equity. Before considering a HELOC, make sure the value of your home is significantly higher than the amount you still owe on your mortgage. HELOCs usually close quickly and carry variable interest rates. • Home equity loans. Essentially a second mortgage, a home equity loan comes with a fixed interest rate. As with a HELOC, you’ll need sufficient equity. • FHA 203(k) loans. This type of loan lets you borrow against the value of the home after improvements. FHA loans are lenient about down payments and credit scores, but they charge higher mortgage insurance fees than other types of loans. • Cash-out refinance. In this scenario,
you borrow more than you owe on your existing mortgage and apply the proceeds to renovations. This requires equity in your home. • Construction loan. A home construction loan is a short-term, higher-interest loan that provides the cash to pay the contractors. The property owner typically needs a longer-term mortgage after the work is completed. • Selling a stake in your home. A new breed of financial technology firms is pitching American homeowners on a different way of tapping into home equity. If you’re sitting on a pile of it, these companies — including Haus, Hometap, Noah, Point and Unison — will buy a piece of your house. You repay the “co-investment” when you sell. One downside: This money comes at a higher cost than a mortgage or HELOC.
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For office furniture sellers during a pandemic, there’s no place like home By Ryan Ori Chicago Tribune (TNS) CHICAGO — Before COVID-19 sent most workers home in March, office furniture resellers took orders for dozens, hundreds or even thousands of items at a time. But in recent months, many of these businesses instead have been besieged by the weary work-from-home masses who are snapping up one refurbished desk and chair at a time, wrestling the goods into their cars and dragging them home. It’s one of many examples of business models changing because of the public health crisis, and it’s an indication that office workers are hunkering down for a much longer stint at home than they initially expected when the office market all but shut down eight months ago. Rework Office Furniture in Chicago has seen noncorporate walk-in and online orders increase to about $100,000 per month, from a pre-pandemic monthly average of $3,000, said Mark Knepper, one of the company’s owners. Business has picked up significantly since August. “It took that long for people’s backs to hurt, and for people to realize they could be sitting in the kitchen for a Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
long time to come,” Knepper said. “That’s when a lot of companies started offering stipends.” Adding to the demand are students learning from home, furniture sellers say. In normal times, companies such as Wurkwel Ventures, Office Furniture Center’s parent, provide a range of services — such as decommissioning offices, relocation services, refurbishing, and selling new and used office furnishings — that accompany office relocations. With no clear date for the widespread return of workers to their offices, many tenants are opting to stay in place on short-term renewals, or even do without an office location for now, as leases expire. Direct-to-consumer sales are creating a new source of revenue for office furniture sellers. But for most industry players, home office business isn’t enough to offset the loss of revenue from huge corporate deals. The sprawling showroom has seen walk-in business triple and its online business soared to 962 orders in September — compared with 40 sales in the same month last year. Some corporations are creating accounts that allow their workers to choose a desk and chair and have it bill directly to their employer, said Mason Awtry, CEO of 16
Chicago-based Wurkwel. “We have seen walk-in traffic increase dramatically during the course of the pandemic,” Awtry said. “A lot of that is the need for people to set up a home office. This is the used furniture economy.” Chris Farrar, a marketing director for software firm CDK Global, already was planning to build a home office in his Batavia, Ill., basement before the pandemic. He accelerated those plans after months working from home, with four sons learning remotely during part of the school week. “I was working from the couch in the living room,” Farrar said. “It sucked. It got to where I had to go outside for calls.” Farrar, who has been to his company’s headquarters twice since mid-March, recently completed an enclosed office in his basement. He ordered a desk, chair and mat from suburban office furniture seller Arthur P. O’Hara Inc. By eliminating his commute and chitchat with co-workers and making lunch at home, Farrar said his productivity has increased. Marketing freelancer Mariam Staunton ordered two sit-to-stand desks and a Herman Miller chair from Rework delivered to her Chicago home in the spring, soon after downtown office buildings began clearing out.
Although she primarily works from an office in her house, Staunton said the pandemic took away the option of working from clients’ offices. “I worked on a long-term engagement with a client based out of the Mart, and it was a great setup with a height-adjustable desk,” Staunton said. “Being at home full-time made me realize I wanted something similar.” With the retail market facing widespread vacancies because of COVID-19, and with home offices booming, Rework is in talks with landlords to create several office furniture pop-up stores throughout the Chicago area, Knepper said. Rework is part of Chicago-based 226 Companies, whose affiliated businesses have seen a slowdown in corporate clients making decisions on new spaces, he said. Revenue from corporate projects is down 30% during the pandemic, Knepper said. “I think there’s a world of opportunity,” Knepper said. “Whenever there
is change, there’s an opportunity for innovation. People are going to be working from somewhere.” Other companies, like Downers Grove, Ill.-based Arthur P. O’Hara and Milwaukee-based Office Furniture Resources, have seen their direct-to-customer business has doubled. Yet those types of transactions do not offset the loss of corporate business and both companies have laid off some employees in the Chicago area. Corporate deals keeping the company busy have more to do with reconfiguring existing offices, such as with more spacing and taller barriers, than with office relocations or expansions, said Mike Slattery, president of Arthur P. O’Hara. Experts say companies are likely to have a mix of workers in the office and at home on any given day, creating a need for flexible office spaces. There is likely to be more spacing and more barriers, meaning there could be a move away from benching and other
open layouts that gained popularity in recent years, and perhaps a move back toward more walls and cubicles. In fact, one page on Office Furniture Center’s website is titled “Cubicles — the future of workplace design (again).” Design changes could affect how materials are reused by other office tenants. “When we bring in all these old cubicles, they’re really tall,” Knepper said. “We’ve got a guy who, all he does it cut down panels to put them into the modern office. “In recent years we’ve been cutting them pretty short. I have a feeling we may not be cutting them as short.” Industry players don’t know how soon their traditional business will return to normal, or what offices will look like post-pandemic. “There’s a lot of business owners who don’t know what to do,” Awtry said. “We’re still in a limbo stage.”
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Real estate Q&A: Can afford home, but not repairs Q: We are buying our first home and will need to use most
around and ask questions about the process. For an average-size house, the inspection should take about three hours, and the report should be very detailed. Attend the inspection. Review your inspection report and speak to your inspector about the results. Every home will have issues, but any serious concerns will necessitate a follow-up inspection by an appropriate contractor. For example, if the report points out possible roof issues, you need to hire a licensed roofer to check it out thoroughly. It is easy to get caught up with the excitement of buying your new house, but you need to keep your feet to the ground to make sure your dream home does not turn out to be a nightmare. Gary M. Singer is a Florida attorney and board-certified as an expert in real estate law by the Florida Bar. He practices real estate, business litigation and contract law from his office in Sunrise, Fla. He is the chairman of the Real Estate Section of the Broward County Bar Association and is a co-host of the weekly radio show Legal News and Review. He frequently consults on general real estate matters and trends in Florida with various companies across the nation. Send him questions online at www.sunsentinel.com/askpro or follow him on Twitter @GarySingerLaw.
of our savings for the down payment and furniture. We cannot afford to make any major repairs for the first couple of years. How can we protect ourselves? — Shelley
A:
While I can understand wanting to get the most house you can afford, it is crucial to afford the home you buy. Many people will count on getting a raise or create other justifications why they should borrow the maximum amount that their lender will allow. You will eventually get a raise or even a better job, but your taxes and insurance will also increase. And even new appliances eventually need to be replaced. Most lenders will require savings equivalent to one or two monthly housing payments, including taxes and insurance. This is not enough. Make sure that you have three to six months in the bank. This way, if you have a temporary setback at work or need to replace your water heater, you deal with an inconvenience rather than a catastrophe. It is crucial to get a detailed home inspection when purchasing your new home. Like all professionals, inspectors’ skill levels vary, so shop Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
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Rethinking the single-family home dream Cynthia Henry The Philadelphia Inquirer PHILADELPHIA — Housing today looks largely the same as it did in 1950, Diana Lind observes in her new book "Brave New Home: Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing." Many builders are still constructing 2,500-square-foot homes with two-car garages on tree-lined streets. But a lot has changed since the single-family house was, as Lind writes, “a practical response to the desire for more space and access to nature.” Today, average family size is smaller — just 3.14 people, and nearly a third of Americans live alone, her research found. Divorce hovers between 40% and 50%, and life expectancy has risen to 79. “As so much of American life has changed, why hasn’t housing?” Lind asks. An urban policy specialist who lives in Philadelphia, Lind traces the history of the single-family ideal from Herbert Hoover’s “Own Your Own Home” program in 1918 through the aftermath of the housing collapse of 2008. She considers housing
alternatives and policies that support them. We invited Lind to talk about her conclusion that a dream primarily oriented toward owning a single-family home “is unaffordable, unhealthy, and out of step with consumer demand.”
Q: Why doesn’t the American dream of the 1950s align with today’s world?
A: If you’re looking at that idea of the American dream in terms of homeownership, our federal housing policies — such as extremely low borrowing rates, and the mortgage interest deduction, which is the largest tax loophole for the wealthy — have made homeownership an unparalleled vehicle for wealth creation. At the same time, not everyone has shared in this dream. Official redlining prohibited Black people and other minorities from accessing homeownership and its myriad benefits for decades in the 20th century. Today, there are double-digit homeownership rate gaps between white people and Black people in every major metro area.
The other American Dream is that of a lot of private space and a two-car garage. Americans are less healthy, happy and social than their peers in many other countries. My book contends that the single-family home lifestyle has contributed to these problems. Nowadays, many people are more interested in living with kin for the social and economic resources they provide, or living in intentional communities because they’re tired of being lonely. It’s a different dream of interdependence, sustainability and health.
Q: So, if not the single-family home, then what?
A: To start, it’s the “single-family home plus.” Many homeowners are excited about accessory dwelling units, such as backyard cottages and in-law suites, that enable them to house loved ones with privacy or generate some rental income. Multigenerational living is on the rise, undoubtedly boosted this year, and while it works in a single-family home, it often
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continued from previous page works better in duplexes or in other situations where there’s some separation of space. Other people, particularly young people who aren’t interested in long-term leases or living alone, are actively seeking intentional communities through co-living. These are buildings dedicated to people having their own private apartments with shared spaces and programming that brings people together. For others, there are wellness communities that prioritize social and physical well-being, and while some of these communities have single-family homes, they’re focused on walkability and shared common spaces outdoors.
Q: You write about health-care insurers and providers such as Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic getting into housing. Why would they do that?
A: Hospitals end up housing the homeless and housing insecure, but they do it in the emergency room or in hospital beds. It’s very expensive because this population doesn’t tend to have insurance and tends to visit the ER frequently. Hospitals have found that housing is actually the best medicine and that it’s actually cheaper to build supportive housing for people who are going to be in the ER a lot. If you extrapolate this situation to other demographics, you can see that hospitals and insurers might actually benefit from focusing more on housing. Some, like Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, have already focused on interventions, like fixing asthma triggers in the homes of children, but it would make sense to use their nonprofit status and mission to improve health outcomes to create housing, where health outcomes are affected.
Q: The coronavirus has disrupted a lot of living situations in 2020. Which housing alternative you describe is most likely to accelerate because of the pandemic? Which will stall? A: Multigenerational living is definitely going to be a big trend for the future. By 2018, the United States had the highest rates of multigenerational living and Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
increasing numbers of family living with kin since 1950. Now, many people have moved in with family to access help with looking after kids and to enlarge their “bubble.” Unfortunately, it’s also a sector with very little attention at the policy or market level. Everyone assumes that multigenerational families can live in single-family homes. They can, but they are more likely to endure and thrive in situations where the housing is better designed to their unique needs. We need local policies that encourage housing types that make it easy for generations to live next to each other. If we incentivized developers to build accessory dwelling units or a duplex instead of a 3,000-square-foot home with a garage, we’d have more housing and it would be much more appealing to multigenerational families. Co-living was very hot prior to the pandemic, and while I’ve heard many co-living developers have continued to raise money and expand, that trend is stalling right now in the very places it was doing the best: highcost cities like New York and San Francisco. Those are cities that are not seeing an influx of young people like they did before.
Q: Many of the alternatives you describe seem to come only in a “luxury” model right now. How could they be adapted to make them more affordable?
A: Certainly shared living done right can offer community for residents and cost savings for developers. Tiny homes have been sold as less-is-more places to downsize but really they’re akin to manufactured housing and targeted to low-income workers. Wellness communities are definitely high-end, but the concept of having wraparound health services works really well for people exiting addiction or homelessness, as well.
Q: If there’s a demand for different kinds of housing, why are many builders still focused on single-family houses?
A: If you want to build anything other than a single-family home in most residential communities, you have to get it approved by a local entity in charge of zoning. Without having certainty about how you could use the property, many developers will just build single-family homes because there is a 22
real cost to the time spent on the approval process. More flexible zoning pretty much ensures more housing options, and more housing options means more naturally affordable housing and more diverse options that appeal to the true diversity of today’s demographics. Increasing the supply of housing in sought-after neighborhoods is the main thing you can do to bring down the cost of housing. More flexible zoning, as in Minneapolis, will allow that. Many homeowners will fight this, because if there is more supply, it will likely lower their property values. The Biden administration has already focused on targeting funding to municipalities that are encouraging the creation of housing supply through less restrictive zoning.
Q: You challenge the long-held notion that home ownership “is one of the best tools to build wealth in communities of color.” Why hasn’t that happened more broadly? What would make more sense? A: It is important to ensure there are equal opportunities for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) to become homeowners, and to ensure that we finally rid the housing industry of the racism that endures to this day in financing and sales. That said, I think we need to move away from homeownership as practically the only means of wealth creation in this country. We work hard to figure out how to house people who can’t pay their rent through numerous federal, state and local initiatives. It’s expensive, difficult and doesn’t cover nearly the number of people necessary. We run into a lot of problems funding subsidized housing, where to locate it, how to maintain it, and so on. We could, instead, give people in need money and let them figure out how to use it. There is a pilot on direct cash transfers going on in Philadelphia right now and in a few other cities in the country. (Disclosure: My husband, Greg Heller, is involved in the Philadelphia project.) It’s a model that would benefit people and be more efficient for the government to execute.
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‘Work from anywhere’ is here to stay
By Andrea Chang Los Angeles Times Before the pandemic, software engineer Allen Dantes commuted four miles every day from his apartment to the headquarters of ChowNow in Los Angeles. The online food ordering platform sent employees home in March until further notice, leaving Dantes, 27, to work from the small two-bedroom apartment he shared with his girlfriend. A few weeks ago, they moved into a 1,500-square-foot three-bedroom, two-bath-
room Craftsman they bought for $415,000. Dantes’ new commute: 390 miles or zero, depending on how you look at it. The house is in Sacramento, Calif. Both have kept their jobs, even though neither of their companies has offices there. Working from home was intended to be a temporary measure for millions of workers in the early days of COVID-19. With no clear end in sight eight months later, employers are offering a perk that would have been unthinkable at the start of the year: Live and work from wherever you want — permanently. It is a monumental shift for corporate America, one that’s forcing companies to rethink the ways they conduct business, manage employees and shape their corporate cultures. And it has major implications for workers, who are now free to untether themselves from city centers and move to places better suited for their budgets and personal situations. But there is often a catch.
Many employers are reducing pay when workers decide to move to less-expensive cities, a controversial measure that has sparked discussion about what it means to be fairly compensated. In some cases, employees have seen their salaries cut by more than 10%. Tech companies are leading the way, reversing years of heavy investment in lavish Silicon Valley campuses designed to lure workers and keep them there well beyond the usual 9-to-5 workday. Facebook, Twitter, VMware, Stripe and ChowNow are among those that have rolled out permanent work-from-anywhere policies and salary adjustments, and are preparing for a wave of employees to distance themselves from headquarters and other main offices. In May, Mark Zuckerberg predicted up to half of Facebook’s employees would work from home within five to 10 years. “Opening offices will be our decision,” Jennifer Christie, Twitter’s chief human resources officer, said in a May memo, “when and if our
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employees come back will be theirs.” “We’ve told everyone: If you’re not comfortable, no problem, stay put,” said Rich Lang, senior vice president of human resources at VMware. Tech companies have often been at the forefront of trailblazing workplace trends, helping popularize open-plan office layouts, standing desks and casual dress codes. But its leading companies for years resisted allowing people to work remotely, insisting that being physically in the office was key to creative collaboration. In 2013, then-Chief Executive Marissa Mayer famously banned telecommuting at Yahoo. That same year, Patrick Pichette, who was Google’s chief financial officer, said the company wanted “as few as possible” to work from home: “There is something magical about spending the time together.” Facebook, founded in 2004, resisted opening an office in nearby San Francisco until 2017, preferring to make all of its Bay Area employees commute to its campus in Menlo Park. But when COVID-19 hit the U.S., tech companies were among the first large employers to send their workforces home. Many found the transition surprisingly smooth. Employers say forced work-from-home
helped them see that their workers could be just as productive, or even more so, outside a traditional office setting, aided by better communication tools and other technologies that have made it easier to get work done from wherever. The benefits for workers are clear: less time stuck in traffic, more time at home, greater freedom to set and manage one’s own schedule, and the possibility of relocating to a more affordable city or to be closer to extended family. For employers, that means happier workforces, higher retention rates and reduced real estate and office expenses. But they say the greatest upside is the ability to attract new employees who live in places they would not have hired from in the past, giving them a competitive edge over rivals who insist on in-office workers. “All of a sudden, the entire U.S. is open to us hiring people,” Lang said. “It opens up a whole X factor.” Before the COVID-19 pandemic, VMware’s U.S. recruiting efforts centered around its half a dozen large offices in regions such as the Bay Area; Bellevue, Wash.; and Colorado Springs, Colo. Now, the software company said it will
consider applicants regardless of location. To make things fair, existing employees can move wherever they want, an offer that the company anticipates many will take: In a survey sent to VMware’s 32,000 employees, half of respondents said they would like to continue working from home long term; only 10% said they wanted to be in the office the majority of the time. But that new freedom can come at a price. VMware is adjusting pay based on factors including the cost of labor and income tax rates in an employee’s new location. Workers have access to an internal tool they can use to compare how their salaries would change. So far, two-thirds of VMware employees who permanently relocated since the flexible-work initiative was rolled out in September saw their pay decrease, some by as much as 18%; the rest saw their pay increase, a spokeswoman said. Companies including Reddit and Veeva Systems say they are not adjusting salaries. Reddit went a step further, saying in a blog post it is “eliminating geographic compensation zones in the U.S.,” putting all employees on the same footing regardless of where they live and continued on next page
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Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
continued from previous page work. “It means that our U.S. compensation will be tied to pay ranges of high-cost areas such as SF and NY.” Others are implementing a set pay cut: At Stripe, employees receive a one-time $20,000 bonus if they relocate permanently. But the online payments company is cutting pay by a flat 10% for those who leave New York, Seattle or San Francisco (where Stripe is headquartered), regardless of where they move in the U.S. A Stripe spokesman said the bonus was to alleviate any financial concerns that workers might have about the cost of moving. Some say any pay cuts are unfair. If companies are already saving money by not having to maintain physical offices, the thinking goes, shouldn’t those savings be passed on to employees? And if an employee’s work is unchanged, shouldn’t they be compensated just as they were before? “You’re a beta or not valued if you take a pay cut and bow to HR or dumb corporate rules,” said Adam Singer, chief marketing officer at enterprise tech firm Think3. Singer moved to Austin, Texas, in December from the Bay Area, where he had worked at Google and other tech companies for a decade.
Since then, “I’ve helped probably about 10 of my friends who are leaving San Francisco and New York City negotiate to not let their company adjust their pay,” he said. “I understand this is a first-world problem. But the margins of these software companies are so good I think employees should stand up for themselves.” His advice: “Negotiate the delta in bonus or stock,” he said. “Your manager has levers.” The topic has prompted heated debate on online tech forums. “If I knew my colleague in the same position as me was making twice as much as I do just by virtue of physical location, I’d be pretty miffed,” one poster wrote on a Hacker News thread about Facebook cutting pay for remote workers. “A salary is made up of a bunch of things, and one of those things is an allowance for living and working in an expensive location, which is not tied to performance or role,” another wrote. “It’s reasonable that it changes if the circumstance changes.” Companies point out that setting pay based in part on geography is standard practice that precedes the pandemic, and that salaries in Silicon Valley are high partly because of how
expensive it is to live there. “The vast majority of people understand that this is how we need to operate a business,” VMware’s Lang said. “There’s always the people who were hoping to move and leverage the lower cost of living and keep their higher comp. But when push comes to shove, people recognize that they’re probably coming out ahead when they’re moving to a lower pay zone.” Dantes, the engineer, had originally wanted to relocate to the Bay Area, where he has family, but settled on Sacramento because it was more affordable. And there was a welcome surprise: After crunching the numbers, ChowNow decided to keep his pay the same. “I fall in the category of work is work,” Dantes said. But if the company had cut his salary, “I would have understood.” If industries beyond tech follow its lead and adopt work-from-anywhere policies, it could have ripple effects well beyond how far programmers can stretch their paychecks. Without the need to follow the most desirable jobs, American knowledge workers could allow other factors to determine where they move, and how often. U.S. mobility rates have been falling for years
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“These are things people should be doing if they’re working in person, but they’re extra important if you’re remote,” she said. When meeting with a manager, “talk about your wins, your challenges, the things you’ve done. Make sure that it’s not just verbal communication, there’s some sort of log that you can reference.” Employers say they’re implementing measures to ensure the playing field is level. At Veeva Systems, where a third of the Pleasanton, Calif., software company’s workforce was already remote before the lockdown, meetings are held via video conference if even one person can’t make it in person, Chief People Officer Vivian Welsh said. “Our remote-first strategy sets the tone that employees don’t need to be in an office,” she said. “Anyone can be successful working from home.” Then there’s the question of how a distributed workforce will affect corporate culture. At tech companies in particular, the office environment is carefully cultivated — and paid for, with perks such as free food, laundromats, car washes, child care, bicycles and state-of-the-art gyms. Twitter began shifting toward a decentralized
office model two years ago. Since last year, the San Francisco company’s permanent workfrom-home requests have more than quadrupled, a spokesman said; before the pandemic, just 3% of Twitter’s workforce took advantage of its Flexible Work Program. With employees spread in far-flung locations across time zones, Twitter has sought to maintain a sense of togetherness this year by hosting virtual tea times, cooking demonstrations and magic shows, as well as a Virtual Hack Week. It has also modified its coveted campus perks: Employees have access to remote yoga and meditation classes; get reimbursements or financial allowances for daycare, at-home fitness equipment and Wi-Fi; and are given $1,000 to help set up home office spaces. For those who move to less-expensive cities, Twitter is adjusting pay on a case-by-case basis. For employers and employees, it’s a moment of “cascading uncertainty,” said Sherveen Mashayekhi, co-founder and chief executive of tech recruiting firm Free Agency. “The percentage of remote jobs is going to increase permanently. The question is how much,” he said. “We’re reconsidering what work looks like.”
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as people stay put and move less, said Greg Lindsay, director of applied research at NewCities, a think tank focused on urbanization. “It’ll be significant if the pandemic reverses that,” he said. Lindsay predicts millennials will move to less-expensive metro areas from New York, Los Angeles and other job hubs. But those who flee high housing prices and taxes may find they’re sacrificing more than a percentage of their salaries. Professional advancement in a distributed company could look very different, and distant employees could find themselves at a disadvantage relative to their office-bound colleagues. “If you’re working remotely, career prospects are going to be fewer,” said Teresa Lee, a career coach in West L.A. “There’s decreased visibility, so you won’t be top of mind when it comes to promotions and these sorts of things.” To counterbalance that, Lee suggested regularly setting up virtual meetings with a wider subset of co-workers, flying to headquarters when possible and scheduling a weekly manager one-on-one. Another tip: pitching projects that involve collaborating with teams of employees instead of working on solo assignments.
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Contractors Guide | Spring 2021
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