ULI Dallas Report: America Is In A New Puritanical Environment
That’s how the expert consultants on yesterday’s powerhouse panel of Emerging Trends in Real Estate put it. Translation: luxury has been temporarily buried. (I like to say it has gone underground.) Among the many notes I have scribbled are phrases like this: 3 million young people have moved back in with their families or doubled up on housing due to job losses; 30 million members of the American workforce are unemployed. Because those kids will eventually want to move out of the house (really?), the investment forecast is positive for apartment complexes. Ditto single family, transit-oriented infill land — real estate verbage for the huge trend of folks moving in closer to the city, public transportation and jobs. Oh but high end luxury condos — not doing well. Houses are most definitely getting smaller and one panelist declared the death of what he called “Wal Mart Houses”. (Adios Sam’s closets.) Echo boomers and Gen X, Y do not want large houses and huge electric bills. They do not want to be house poor. This same generation is cannibalizing retail because they use malls to socialize, not shop. Where do they shop? On line.
Local proof of the new Puritanism: D. Porthault, those glorious, luxurious, butter-to-the-touch linens that came to us at Highland Park Village, will no longer have a stand-alone shop in Dallas. The HPV store closed the end of June and planned to re-locate within the Park Cities, but the owners have decided not to re-open a store in Dallas.
All is not lost: Madison will carry some of the D. Porthault lines.
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