Homes Designed for Women

Home builders are trying to capitalize on why women are drawn to some houses -- and not others.

When Brandi Hach and her husband were looking for a new home, they swore that new home construction was not for them. She was eight months pregnant at the time and in no mood to deal with the frantic building process she saw her friends go through. Then the Hachs happened to drive by an open house held by Fargo, North Dakota-based Heritage Homes, and in they went. "I was blown away," says Hach. As soon as she walked through the front door, she was drawn to the enormous living area next to the kitchen, and then she spotted the rear entry lockers offering a counter and a place for everything.

Hach's response was exactly what Heritage Homes hoped for. They'd built the model house hoping to impress female buyers.

It's called woman-centric building, and some of today's savvy home builders are trying to woo more women by adding details that they think they'll appreciate. The increase in woman-centric home design has come about because more single women are buying houses, according to The Wall Street Journal. As a result, builders are aggressively adding more details and architectural features women will love, like "killer" walk-in closets (for obvious reasons) and gas fireplaces (easier to light and maintain).

Design Basics, a home plan design firm, is pioneering the movement. They work with sixty builders around the country who are designated Woman-Centric Matters members. More women seem to be signing on the dotted line: Heritage Homes, who opened their first woman-centric home in the fall of 2009, says that they are doing exceedingly well, even in an anemic housing market, thanks to the Woman-Centric Matters program.

The most popular feature of Heritage's Woman-Centric Matters homes seems to be the "drop zone" or rear foyer full of kid-friendly lockers. "Don't call it a mud room," says Paul Foresman, the mastermind behind the Woman-Centric Matters division of Design Basics. "Women don't like the perception of mud all over the home." And don't expect to see a living room in a Woman-Centric Matters' home -- just a nice big great room so women can interact with their families while they're in the kitchen.

"Men have always been more simple than women when it comes to wants and needs in a home," says Paula Miller, a seasoned realtor with Coldwell Banker in Shepherdstown, West Virginia and regional vice president of the National Association of Realtors. "Women always want the bells and whistles -- their own walk-in closet, granite counters, and newer homes that are maintenance free."

Now that she's all moved in to a Heritage woman-centric home, Hach says her favorite feature is the automatic light in the rear foyer. "How many times do moms have groceries in one hand and a child in the other, and we're walking into a dark house?" she says. "It may sound silly, but here we built this beautiful house and I'm in love with the simple features, such as the cookie sheet cabinet in the kitchen and the automatic pantry light." She also admits to loving the way the kitchen island faces the living area because in her old house Hach felt she was missing out on life when isolated in the kitchen.

It takes more than installing a light to attract women to a home. Design Basics' Woman-Centric Matters program is an extensively researched idea that launched in 2003. To reach home buyers -- 91 percent of which are women, according to Design Basics' research -- the program encourages participating builders to throw targeted events. "We recently had a Women's Day Out at one of our builder's homes in Columbus, Ohio," says Foresman. "We had wine, crab cakes, and more, and over 200 women came through the model home. Another hundred ladies came to a jewelry design party held in a Warwick, Rhode Island Woman-Centric Matters home and four contracts were written."

Anecdotal evidence suggests that women are drawn to these homes. Since adopting the program in 2008, Hugh Fisher, president of Deer Brook Development in Rhode Island, has increased the number of homes he's sold from an average of 20 per year to over 149 Woman-Centric Matters houses alone since 2008.


In fact, Heritage's business has gone up about 40 percent from where it was in 2009, thanks to the addition of the Woman-Centric Matters program. Though much of the advertising is word of mouth, Tyrone Leslie, president and chief operating officer of Heritage Homes, says that the local media has taken an interest and covered Woman-Centric Matters events. (For a clip, check out this CNBC feature.)

Now that Hach has lived in her woman-centric home for over a month, we had to ask: How does her husband feel about living in a home designed for a woman? "He loves the features," she says, "and he doesn't analyze the fact that it's a Woman-Centric Matters design."

How would a house built for a man differ? We'd venture a guess that there'd be much more attention paid to technology. Coldwell Banker's Miller says that men want to see lots of storage space for their tools.

Still, Hach is impressed with how comfortable she is in her new home. She's even had to deflect envy from female friends who come to visit, especially when they walk through the back foyer and spot the nifty automatic light.

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