Green Builder Media CEO Sara Gutterman talks with Danielle and Jesse Younger of Austin-based Younger Homes about how a new generation of builders is educating buyers on healthy, zero-energy construction. They explain why reading a lot's topography, trees and prevailing winds should come before choosing a floor plan.
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Sara Gutterman: Hi, I'm Sarah Gutman, and I'm here with Daniel and Jesse Younger, the owners of Younger Homes. So Younger Homes is a different kind of builder. Can you tell me what makes you special and unique?
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Jesse Younger: I think that we have a very unique situation in that my dad was a builder since the 70s. So we have that that generational experience. But then we also have that innovative spirit of us coming in fresh.
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Danielle Younger: We're able to provide a product that people don't even know they want until they speak with us, and we can educate them about what it really means to have a sustainable, efficient home that's also beautiful and one that them and their family can enjoy living in.
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Sara Gutterman: You're in Austin, which is the hottest hot markets, but trends are you seeing there?
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Jesse Younger: The trend is that I think people are wanting to make their homes their sanctuary. You know, how much more are we spending time in our homes now post-Covid with working from home after snowpack lips, you know, being able to have more resilient and kind of off the grid capabilities. So you're not dependent upon other people. And so I think the home is really becoming kind of the cornerstone for families.
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Jesse Younger: And it's getting a lot more focus out here.
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Sara Gutterman: Tell me about your average or the profile of your average buyer and what do they want.
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Jesse Younger: We've seen a lot more young families moving out this way. These home buyers don't want to make all the decisions in the world. You know, they just want to know, like, okay, give me options A, B and C, A, B and C and have a price tag on it. And the pros and cons and a lot of them are just saying, well what what would y'all do.
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Jesse Younger: They trust us to make that some of those decisions for them.
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Sara Gutterman: How interested are they in things like indoor air quality and proactive IQ systems? And what about living and resiliency and things like solar plus storage? Given Sonoma getting some of the power issues.
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Danielle Younger: The future homeowners, they know what they didn't know before and so they're asking the right questions. It's our job as a builder to educate them on that vocabulary. You know, we're looking at the details of what our floors are made out of, what our cabinetry is made out of, our subfloor.
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Jesse Younger: And the glues and pieces that are used.
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Danielle Younger: And the paint, I mean, every material that goes into our home gets looked at from a fine tooth comb. And once you've addressed and established that you know the standard specifications, now you can educate your clients. They know they want it. They just don't know how important it is. And then it's even achievable. And once we kind of enlighten them that it's achievable at a price point that is competitive, it's a no brainer for them.
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Danielle Younger: It's very easy decision.
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Jesse Younger: Our baseline is to get all of our homes indoor air Plus certified. You know, we our baseline is a fresh air unit that might cost $400. You know, and that's a standard on all of our homes to run an algorithm that says you run your AC for this much, it's 100 degrees outside. So I'm not going to bring fresh air in or 100% humidity not going to bring fresh air in, versus the traditional way of just having a flapper valve open every hour on the hour.
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Danielle Younger: I will say, when it comes to zero energy, it's one of those things that we have to educate clients on. They don't know that zero energy is even achievable, but it's not a complicated formula, right?
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Sara Gutterman: When you're working with clients, what are the top 2 to 3 things that you recommend to them that they absolutely have to have?
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Jesse Younger: Understand the personality of your lot before you start designing and building your house. But especially in Austin, each lot has its own personality of topography, of trees, views, prevailing winds. Take the time to get to know your lot and then choose a floor plan that fits that.
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Danielle Younger: Like from a mechanical perspective, I would say hospitals, and from an energy efficiency perspective, it would be the installation. But if we're getting to the remodel of the world, which so much of that is happening, so stupid in remodeling, it's such a temptation to remodel what you can see. And that's so counterintuitive. When we remodel, it's the perfect time to look at those kind of like the forensic, the behind the walls of how you can make your home more energy efficient, tighter, hold your, and when you're budgeting before you even open up the walls, planning your budget around fitting energy efficient items like your insulation like, and you have access into your budget as
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Danielle Younger: the top item and not that well if there's money left over.
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Sara Gutterman: So what are some of the obstacles and challenges that you and your home buyers face?
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Danielle Younger: Hands down, number one, the general public thinks it's more cost prohibitive to build sustainably. And I would guess that when people don't pick up their phone to call younger homes because we advertise that we're green sustainable builder, that's because they think that we're going to cost an orbital.
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Sara Gutterman: Like, what's your kind of best tip for our audience in terms of what they can do to just live more sustainably?
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Jesse Younger: The most efficient square footage you can build is the one that you don't build at all.
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Danielle Younger: The number one pillar of sustainability is waste. And so if we look at it from that high level perspective, then it gives our families so much capability to just make one small change in the area when it comes to waste.