Remember when everyone wanted a big, open loft-like home? Or smaller, fewer rooms? Or Urban living? A compact car? Escape the 'boredom' of the suburbs?
Trends - even those that appear like long term ones - have the ability to reverse course, sometimes for a brief moment and sometimes for the longer term. It is often a 'major event' or invention that can trigger these reversals. The pace at which trends shift has accelerated notably too. Sometimes the rhetoric that is fueled by the media, chatter, etc snowballs and then becomes a trend. For years people were breaking down walls of homes to emulate big, open loft living.....and then they lived this way for a while to recognize that when multiple people co-exist in a space, having more 'compartments' or rooms to 'escape' or have a private moment matter to human beings.
Smaller, more efficient cars became a big trend till people discovered the comforts of SUV's and larger vehicles.....mostly triggered by an era or relatively lower fuel costs, a stronger economy and improved fuel efficiency. Most electric cars used to be golf carts 10 years ago.... today there are over 1 million electric cars on US roads. Closed off kitchens were wonderful once upon a time till cooking became the hobby du juor and homeowners all seemed to congregate in the kitchen. Kitchens became the primary living rooms of most homes - even mansions - so their functionality changed to include cooking, dining and living functionality. Recently a big trend is not just the desire for home office space, but for QUIET home office space, removed from the daily noises of life.
A few years ago (yes, just a few years ago) consumers looked at tiny little classified print ads to search for their next home. In 1981 22% of consumers started their search with classified ads: today over 44% of home searches start online. Ten years ago NO-ONE searched for a home on their i-phone. Today at least 76% of consumers are finding homes on a mobile device. New technologies have the capacity to reverse trends ....quickly. Smartphone technology has also shifted how people find their agent (around 87% of consumers still work with an agent) and now over 17% find their agent via their smartphone.
Observe all trends closely. Be sure to watch to see whether a change is a trend or merely a moment. As trends shift, new opportunities arise. As they shift, the 'old, tried, true, tested' ways of doing things shift too. Be certain to change and adjust with changing times. Quickly.
