Cusato, Consumer Reports and Common Sense on Home Value

In this blog article, Consumer Reports asks Marianne Cusato 10 Questions. Of particular interest, is this one, "If people only remember one of your eight components of a valuable home, what should it be?"

Common sense. For example, using materials according to their physical properties. Brick and stone are both load-bearing materials, which means historically they supported their own weight. So you wouldn't have vertical strips of either of those materials going up high into a gable surrounded on both sides by siding. Avoid materials that make the house look like a patchwork quilt and design elements that look like they could take flight off the building—enormous gables, three-story entrances, etc. All of this adds unnecessary cost to the home and actually detracts from the value.

Real value comes from elements that make sense, like windows on the side of the house that allow cross ventilation, making the home more comfortable and efficient to heat and cool. Using durable materials on all 4-sides of the home may sound like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how many homes face a durable façade to the street yet leave the rest of the home vulnerable to fire and with vinyl siding.

Download Cusato's Eight Components of a Valuable Home (PDF)

Video Presentation:
Marianne Cusato Re-defining Livability for Today

Adaptability, Livability, Sustainability and the No Maintenance Myth

Marianne Cusato, designer of The New Economy Home explains the new buzzwords on home value to builders at the International Builders Show. Her insight can also help re-designers determine where to invest home improvement dollars.

Adaptability: It used to be that as your finances and family needs shifted, you had to move to a bigger or smaller home. Now, that's not as easy or even possible. Homes today should be adaptable for your changing needs. As your family grows, kids get older, parents (or adult children) move in, the home doesn’t have to change, how you live in it can change.  And, an added benefit of having a home that can adjust to a variety of circumstance is that it enhances re-sell. It becomes attractive to a larger demographic, rather than one specific group.

Livability: Square footage used to determined value, not because it met our needs, but because drywall was a cheap and easy way for builders to differentiate their homes. Somewhere along the way, we lost usable space. Houses became so large we had trouble furnishing, heating and cooling them. Some were so poorly designed that private conversations were difficult because noise carried from one area of the 3,000 sq ft home to another. We should design for how we live, not for the sake of square footage.

Sustainability: Sustainability is not a checklist of products, points or a label. At its heart, sustainability is making a building or community livable and beautiful enough that people will want to maintain. The greenest way to build is to build something that doesn’t have to be replaced. It needs to function and allow you to live in it in different ways. It should be practical, run well, look nice. You should be proud to live there.

The No Maintenance Myth: We want our homes to be no-maintenance. Unfortunately, regardless of what you’ve been promised, that really doesn’t exist. If you have a no-maintenance product, it is at its best the day it’s installed. It then starts gradually working toward its failure. This is not sustainability. A low maintenance home might require painting every 15 to 20 years. When you care about something and are proud of it, you want to take care of it. This is sustainability.

Purpose and Pride Replace Plastic Promises

Somewhere along the line, homeowners were told they needed a "McMansion" with 10 gables or they didn't measure up. We walked through homes with a checklist of must-haves such as granite countertops and media rooms without really considering how we were going to live there. Thankfully, the new economy is encouraging a more practical approach, one that recognizes how we live, our changing family and financial needs and incorporates materials with more purpose than façade.

Designer of The New Economy Home, Marianne Cusato says what really measures up is making a home adaptable, livable and sustainable. Value will be determined with sensitivity toward how the space will be used and cared for. The next time you're considering home improvement or home buying options, ask yourself more meaningful questions such as these:

• Does it have a porch you can actually sit on?
• Are the windows placed with purpose, for cross-ventilation and natural light?
• Do the shutters actually work or are they just staged Styrofoam?
• Are the rooms furnish-able?
• Do the rooms serve multiple purposes?
• Are you proud of the home from the street?
• Do you want to take care of it?

Cusato says creating true value in a home is an art form. Everything has multiple purposes. Everything is there for a reason.

"Whether it is music or architecture, the perfect composition is an artful balance of many elements. You can't take away a single piece and have it still work."

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