We believe that the best marketing strategy is informed by a thorough understanding of market conditions, alongside evolving consumer preferences. The real estate development industry has proven our resilience, and we are challenged to thrive in “the new normal.”

Below are the pieces that we have found most helpful, and we hope that they do the same for you.

01 | MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab

➤ The Financial Impact of Healthy Buildings
While the benefits of healthy spaces have long been qualitatively understood and appreciated, their value and impact on economic decision-making have not been financially analyzed.

• The average American spends 90% of their time indoors. How do healthy buildings have an effect on physiological wellbeing AND developer revenue and returns?

• This research piece by Natasha Sadikin, Irmak Turan, and Dr. Andrea Chegut using CompStak (data) and Healthy Building public databases from Fitwel (certification) and WELL (certification) to value healthy spaces on the effective rent of offices space in ten U.S. cities The conclusion? "Healthy building effective rents transact between 4.4 and 7.7% more per square foot than their nearby non-certified and non-registered peers..."

02 | Gensler

➤ Gensler Design Forecast 2021
Reconnect | Design Strategies for a Post-Covid World

• This highly-researched collection of trends, insights, and practical advice is presented in a visually beautiful, and easy to digest manner - everyone in real estate development will find this useful and it is worth bookmarking. Gensler covers strategy for revitalizing retail spaces, what role the office will take, how we will travel, and most importantly - how development can create healthier places for people to live, work, learn in, and play in.

• The report is organized around the framework of Health, Work, Lifestyle, and Community - focusing on how the post-COVID-world has and will change real estate development.

03 | Brookings Institution

➤ The Great Real Estate Reset
Modernizing family: America’s demographics are transforming, but our housing supply is not

• For the first time in a century, the size of the average United States household is growing and trending upward. Our current housing supply must adjust to reflect changing demographics, familial structures, how we work, and most importantly, how we live.

• Tracy Hadden Loh and Evan Farrar begin by defining what has changed, “The nuclear family is no longer the dominant household structure…our aging population is aging in place.” Then, they discuss why these trends matter for the long term.

04 | Architectural Digest

➤ Introducing the 2021 AD100
Meet today's top talent in architecture and design

• The 2021 AD100 has been released, with 22 global collaborators making this list for the first time. Finally, more people of color, more women, and firms from across the world are represented. So much beautiful work.

• Often, new development teams turn to this revered list when thinking about which collaborator to hire for an upcoming project, as there are strategic marketing advantages that come with being the “first development” to work with an AD100 firm. Given the slightly steeper learning curve that is involved in working with the new entrants in the list, development teams should also be prepared to spend more time upfront to ensure a smooth process.

05 | Fast Company

➤ The future of cities is walkable, healthy, resilient places
COVID-19 will reshape the city, but the bounce-back could make them more livable.

• Walkable, healthy, and resilient places just make sense. People can be social, local businesses are supported, walking, biking, not needing to use a car to go everywhere… Dense and diverse environments can lead to better outcomes for all people.

• Brooks Rainwater, the Senior Executive, and Director, Center for City Solutions at National League of Cities discusses how we can create more space for people, that have supporting services close that can be easily navigated to. 2020 brought us the concept of the “15-minute city,” which has changed the way we look at denser locales.

06 | Bloomberg | CityLab

➤ Make Way for the ‘One-Minute City’
Sweden is pursuing a hyper-local twist: a scheme to redesign every street in the nation.

• If 2020 was all about the 15-minute city, then will 2021 bring us the “One Minute City?” Sweden, often ahead of the curve, is now pursuing Street Moves, a very ambitious pilot by Sweden’s national innovation agency Vinnova and design think tank ArkDes to envision placemaking at the street level.

• Via workshops and consultations communities, residents participate in the conversation about what street space should be used for - whether parking or playgrounds. It’s already rolled out experimentally at four sites in Stockholm, with three more cities about to join up. Fast Company’s Adele Peters also wrote about this concept quite well in, “How to transform your street into a 1-minute city.”

07 | The New York Times

➤ The Down Side to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks
432 Park, one of the wealthiest addresses in the world, faces some significant design problems, and other luxury high-rises may share its fate.

• Purchasing a residence in a one-of-a-kind, never been done before” building has its upside, but even an “iconic” structure must experience the physical nuances that settling in brings. Stefanos Chen takes us through some of the design challenges that residents of 432 Park on Billionaires' Row are experiencing after moving in.

• It is hard to feel sympathetic for billionaires in luxury high-rises (432 Park’s estimated sellout was 3.1BN), but that’s missing the point. No matter the size or price point of new development, these things happen. A developer’s reputation and brand are important; your reputation and how you address challenges are the path to your legacy.

08 | The New Yorker

➤ The Art of Building the Impossible
The carpenter behind some of New York’s most elaborate—and expensive—homes.

• Meet the Haute Couture of real estate carpentry and construction via Mark Ellison, the man that gets hired to build the impossible - with enough capital, the sky is the limit. Burkhard Bilger takes us through how Ellison reimagines what is already the most expensive real estate in the world. According to Ellison, “Straight lines are easy, curves are hard. Most houses are just collections of boxes...”

• We did not want to like this article because we know that for 99% of the world, the places that Ellison works in will never be something that they experience. Yet, there is the pride of truly knowing his craft, and owning who he is that we found so compelling.

09 | Los Angeles Times

➤ Pioneer of the L.A. look: Paul R. Williams wasn’t just ‘architect to the stars,’ he shaped the city
Know his name. Black History is our history.

• Los Angeles would not have some of its most iconic buildings such as The Beverly Hills Hotel, or the Los Angeles County Courthouse, had it not been for the work of an incredibly talented Black Architect, Paul R. Williams.

• Williams’s legacy includes the first Black architect to be admitted into the American Institute of Architects (AIA); he earned a seat (at 27) on the 1921 City Planning Commission, and in 2017, the AIA posthumously awarded Williams its prestigious Gold Medal. PBS’s documentary, “Hollywood’s Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story,” artist Janna Ireland’s publication of “Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer’s View.”  HomeAdvisor, a home repair site, commissioned illustrator Ibrahim Rayintakath to draw 43 Williams homes.

10 | The Washington Post

➤ A stacked game? Sizing up housing outcomes in the pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic has created economic winners and losers. This is especially clear in the nation’s housing market.

• The odds are stacked against those with less capital and resources is an obvious statement, but why? How did they get there? How do they continue to be that way (hint: it’s not just the stock market), and what could the end game potentially look like?

• Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics, breaks down the “stacked game” from the top that can afford to purchase new homes, but the bottom can’t pay rent. We don’t have an idea for the solution, but it’s nice to be able to so thoroughly understand the problem.

We will continue to curate, discover, and share. If you found this helpful, please forward it to a colleague or friend.

Butterfly Voyage offers Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) services to elevate the marketing strategy for real estate developers and new developments. Please reach out to meg@butterflyvoyage.com to begin the conversation.

A thank you to our Butterfly Voyage industry insiders and contributors. Their perspectives, insights discussion, and support were a key part of making this piece come to life.