The more things that are wrong with the houses people live in today, the easier it should be now to sell them something better
So let's all thank our lucky stars that
yesterday's house is as obsolete as yesterday's car
This 7 page editorial was written in collaboration with Home Building's No. 1 economist MILES L. COLEAN
Yesterday's house is either too big (if it was built before the war) or too small (if it was built right after the war).
Yesterday's house has only one bath (some 7 million have none at all). Yesterday's house has too few bedrooms (median: well under two). Yesterday's house has no family room, no room for television. Yesterday's house has too small a garage.
Yesterday's house wastes space (if it has any space to waste).
Yesterday's house is hard to heat in winter WL-J and hard to keep cool in summer. Yesterday's house has too little insulation or none at all.
Yesterday's house is too noisy. ^j⅜
Yesterday's house is too dark........F*
Yesterday's house has inadequate wiring. §$£ ⅜¾⅛-
Yesterday's house never heard of orientation.....{nj* overhangs, open planning,
multi-use of space, or indoor-outdoor living.
Yesterday's house has no vapor barriers (and usually leaks air so fast it needs none).
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Yesterday's house makes too much work. 0
Yesterday's house coops the housewife up in her kitchen.
Yesterday's house has too many stairs (prewar)
or too little storage (postwar)
Yesterday's house is planned for a way of life we no longer live. Yesterday's house is planned for more maids and less children. Yesterday's house seldom had an architect.
Yesterday's house is long out of style.
Drawings: Fred Harsh
Long ago the auto makers and the appliance makers learned to their surprise that selling is actually easier and faster in a "saturated market." The man who already owns a car or a refrigerator is a better prospect for a new one provided:
1) he can trade in his old model for the down payment on a new one, and provided:
2) the new model is a lot better than the old.
For the next ten years we too must make most of our sales to second-time buyers. There are not enough new families to sustain our volume, and not enough of the new families can qualify for today's prices.
Our scarcity market is gone. In its place we must open up a great new replacement market among the millions of homeowning families who can now afford to buy a much bigger and better house. But . ..