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Daily Real Estate News | April 9, 2007 | Buyers Want It All Within Walking Distance
The next hot market could be homes in walkable neighborhoods designed for the 75 percent of families that don't have any school-age children.

Christopher B. Leinberger, a Brookings Institution fellow, says up to 40 percent of Americans want to live in urban places where they can walk to restaurants, shop, jobs, and entertainment. He predicts that the move to downtown may well lead the housing market out of its slump. “Downtown living is the preferred alternative,” he says.

Though Leinberger believes there are not enough condos on the market to meet demand, builders in several cities have been forced to offer incentives or transform condos back into apartments due to slow sales.
One of the best things about walkable neighborhoods is that locals are virtually income neutral. In other words, well-heeled empty-nesters and cash-strapped first-time home buyers both are able to choose the same neighborhoods, even if they can't afford the same interior designs, says architect Rick Emsiek, a partner with McLarand, Vasquez, Emsiek & Partners in Irvine, Calif.,

Other urban living trends include:

More sales to single women who will choose cities as they become safer.
More pressure by cities on builder to mix residential with retail so service workers can live where they work.
Cities will cater to the childless while families will move to the suburbs.
Empty nesters and their grown children will live near each other in townhouses and condominiums.