The Wall Street Journal - 06.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, March 6, 2020 |M9

the house and draws up a list of

things the seller should change

before marketing the house.

“Young people don’t want to

‘put their stamp on it,’ ” Mr. Ad-

amczyk said. “They want clean,

crisp and defect free.” He is cur-

rently doing a roughly $500,000

remodel of a Burr Ridge, Ill.,

house he built for a client 25

years ago.

“The client realizes that he will

‘never,’ his words, sell the house

unless he fixes it up,” he added.

Real-estate brokerages Com-

pass and Redfin both have new

programs named “Concierge”

which front some home sellers

money and advice on how to up-

grade properties. On closing, sell-

ers pay back principal plus fees.

Once the house is updated,

agents said the next priority is to

paint it in a color scheme that ap-

pears to dazzle young buyers with

near-totemic power.

“We tell sellers if they have the

money, we do recommend that they

paint it white and one of the 50

shades of gray,” said Ms. Mellstrom.

owner of Adamczyk Fine Homes &

Interiors in Evanston, Ill., said he

has given up building spec and

custom homes and now markets a

service he calls “Let’s Sell It.” He

prospects for clients by searching

for homes in the Chicago suburbs

over $1 million that are over 50

years old and have been on the

market for several months. When

he gets a bite, he goes through

the same period, according to an

analysis by Attom Data Solutions.

Dominic Labriola, co-founder of

Craft & Bauer Real Estate, a Los

Angeles brokerage, said even in

Los Angeles “hillside neighbor-

hoods are less and less of a status

symbol for this generation.”

Instead, what these buyers

value are brand-new or fully reno-

vated homes. George Adamczyk,

professor of urban planning and

public policy at the University of

Southern California. Because they

mature, marry and have children

later than any previous genera-

tion, “they still act like they’re in

their 20s,” he said.

If they do move to the suburbs,

they still want to socialize, which

has given rise to a price divide

within suburbs between walkable

and non-walkable areas.

In Mill Valley, homes in the

downtown area sell for 32% more

a square foot than the average for

the city, which includes many

homes up in the hills, said Logan

Link, a Compass agent who repre-

sented the Huelskamps when they

bought their house.

“This makes sense,” said Ms.

Link. “The No. 1 thing most of my

clients are looking for is a sense

of community.”

In Greenwich, Conn., luxury es-

tates in the “backcountry” are

worth only 0.73% more a square

foot than they were in 2011, while

in-town luxury home values a

square foot have grown by 2.3% in

2011, Lake Forest luxury homes

sold for a median per-square-foot

price 11% higher than luxury

homes in Evanston; today, they

sell for nearly 13% less than in Ev-

anston.

Many expensive suburbs are

feeling pressure because leaving

city life behind is no longer a cul-

tural must-do. Kristin Odegaard, a

34-year-old director of merchan-

dising and her husband Anush

Elangovan, a 42-year-old technol-

ogy executive, nearly put an offer

on a $3.4 million, seven-bedroom

spread in Piedmont, Calif., a sub-

urb 11 miles east of San Francisco

with “great schools,” Ms. Ode-

gaard said. But ultimately, they

couldn’t bring themselves to leave

San Francisco, she said.

They are currently hunting for

city homes in the $3 million to

$3.5 million range; if they don’t

find what they want, they may

just renovated their current home,

she said.

Today, people in their 30s and

early 40s experience a “delayed

life cycle,” said Dowell Myers, a

Kimberly

FitzSimons and

her three

children in the

family’s Pelham

home. They

chose the

quaint town,

below, for its

proximity to

New York City,

where her

husband works.

$1.975

MILLION

5,000 sq. ft.,

1 mile to village center

of Pelham, N.Y.

DOROTHY HONG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (6)

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