Developers favoring walkable over car-oriented 3 to 1

We know the demand for walkable communities is there, but what about the supply? Looks like it’s finally catching up, at least as far as surveys go.

A survey of 1000 builders and developers in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic area, conducted by The Strategic Alliance real estate group, found that 60% of them are shifting away from bigger traditional home designs to pedestrian-oriented mixed-use neighborhoods. Not surprisingly, 61.4% of them feel multi-family residential holds the greatest potential for growth, with only 19.2% for single-family. 63.1% are re-evaluating their already planned projects to reflect this.

There are also indications that opportunities for crowdsourced placemaking are growing:

– Nearly half of the respondents answered yes to the question, “Since the recession, do you see large development firms changing the way they do business in an effort to share financial risk?” With crowdsourced placemaking, homes/businesses are pre-sold/pre-leased, thus effectively sharing in the financial risk.

– Nearly half also stated that ‘demand‘ is the most pressing challenges in developing residential real estate today, followed by a third who pointed to financing. Crowdsourced placemaking is essentially demand-driven development, unlike the vast majority of real estate today, which is supply driven.

Read more in Citybizlist Baltimore.

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