Top Trends to Watch and the Future Flops to Ignore

Remember when people laughed at tiny homes? Now, they are a trendy, viable option. This is often how movements begin, with a few early adopters jumping on board while others wait to see if it takes off. But for every success, there are multiple flops. When trends can make or break your business, it pays to know which have sticking power and which are just the flavor of the day. From co-living to finding neighbors online like a Tinder date, Susan Yashinsky, vice president of innovation trends at Sphere Trending, has the skinny on the top trends for the future.

Which trends will matter and which will not? One way we think about this is by looking at the adoption curve below. Which innovations will explode along the green line versus stagnate along the red line?

In this podcast episode, Dean is joined by Susan Yashinsky, the VP of Innovation Trends at Sphere Trending and a frequent speaker at our Housing Design Summit. Susan helps us separate the trends that will go nowhere from the trends that will dominate the future. Susan works with many of the most forward-thinking building product researchers to help them understand how and why spaces are evolving.

Co-Living Will Explode

Co-living solves two problems almost everyone acknowledges.

1. Affordability. Co-living is less expensive. Many young adults view co-living as nothing more than transitioning from dormitory living to a more luxury form of dormitory living.
   • Older generations called this “having roommates.”
   • Younger generations believe that sleeping areas are for sleeping and can thus be small.
2. Single households will explode in numbers due to:
   • Younger generations finding their partner later in life
   • Older generations outliving their partner for life

Single households have affordability problems as well as loneliness issues. 30% of Gen X will never marry compared to 14% in prior generations. Living alone can be depressing.

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