My Real Estate Blog

The Home of Tomorrow — Now!

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Though the exhibit seems utterly dated today, it does reflect what people at that time believed the future held for home building: mass-produced structures made of cheap yet durable material that offered convenience and comfort for residents. And when you think about it in those terms, that doesn’t seem too far off the mark.

As the real estate industry, the economy, technology, and society have changed, however, one would expect visions about the “House of the Future” would evolve as well. Is there an example today that we could point to as a possible model for tomorrow’s homes?

• Fully integrated, networked electrical systems within the homes.
• Zero-energy building, which allows residents to live off the grid.

The first feature offers residents the ability to control every electrical mechanism and appliance in their house — from light switches to stoves — via a laptop (which is included in the home purchase). And they can manage these remotely, as well, from any device that has an Internet connection.

“If you’re driving home on a dark, rainy night, you can turn on your front porch light, turn up the heat in your house, and preheat your oven for dinner before you get home,” says Mike Muren, executive vice president of Nexus EnergyHomes and one of REALTOR Magazine’s 30 Under 30 honorees in 2008.

The second element includes solar-energy roof panels, geothermal energy piped in from hundreds of feet below ground, and rainwater-harvesting systems. All this adds up to significant financial benefits for North Pointe home owners, who can take advantage of green tax credits and never have to pay a utility bill.

Now, many of these concepts aren’t new. Home-networking technologies have been around for about a decade, and several of the green-energy solutions in this development have existed much longer than that. So what’s different?

“People have built individual homes that have these technologies,” Muren explains. “But no one has done it on a large scale until recently because the prices didn’t make sense.”

“Everything’s going really good,” Muren says. “We’ve gotten a crazy amount of interest since we started marketing the project.”