THE BYTE

Welcome to the BYTE, where we serve up the latest home and tech news from the last week for you to sink your teeth into.

This week we’re taking a BYTE out of who is looking to buy, some inspiration for your Monday, the rise of smart homes, a new way to put together homes, and a sneak peek at a can’t miss event. Dig in!

Generally

Discouraging
We’ve talked about the housing shortage going on around the country, well now it’s starting to effect some desires to buy. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are starting to say now might not be the best time to buy.

Is This A Cause To Worry?
Probably not. The demand in the market has been pretty crazy for the last little bit and according to Credit Suisse their latest survey showed an increase in the index of buyer traffic. They are citing a worry among buyers about the threat of rising mortgage rates as the cause of buyers looking more heavily and have a greater sense of urgency when looking. This urgency varies based of where the buyers lived but the average rose 2 points this past month.

Now That’s Creative

An The Winners Are…
Each year FastCompany hosts their World Changing Ideas Awards. This year the winners include an all-electric plane for short flights, upcycling flowers after they’ve run their course, and L.A.’s new plan for combatting the housing crisis. LA is looking to micro housing in single family backyards as a way to combat the housing shortage. To encourage people to start building, they made getting loans easier, made a guide book on exactly what to do, and removed red tape such as random fees and parking permits. In 2016, 120 permits were issued for units. In 2017, 2,342 were issued. They are hoping for 10,000 total units by 2021.

Take Notes

Seems To Be Catching On
More and more builders across the country are starting to build smart homes. Whether it be Wi-Fi focused homes, lights, cameras, thermostats, and so on, builders of all sizes are starting to integrate their builds. With positive feedback, more innovations and products being released, such as Amazon Key keyless entry going nationwide, I don’t think we should expect to see this trend slow down anytime soon.

Build Me Up
Swiss engineers have developed a robotic construction method to build geometrically complex structures and buildings. These buildings are so complex they were basically impossible to build with wood before. Now because these robots are able to cut, hold, and build each part they are getting some pretty incredible results.

So Excited!
Our annual DCX Summit is only 16 days away and we can’t wait. Our speaker line-up this year is absolutely amazing with speakers from Southwest, BazaarVoice, Zappos, and more. We have one speaker we are going to be announcing soon that you definitely don’t want to miss. Look for that update tomorrow… You can look at our whole line up here or register here!

Totally Unrelated

That’s A Long Time
If you have about 9 minutes and are interested in a fun history & future of everything, look no further.