Meril Missbach is the VP of sales and marketing at Peachland Homes

Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their Short List, a collection of tips and recommendations on an essential topic in real estate. This week, we talked with Meril Missbach, the VP of sales and marketing at Peachland Homes, about the key trends in Atlanta new construction.

Peachland homes specializes in luxury lifestyle homes. We build in the city and also in the suburbs in some of Atlanta’s loveliest golf and country clubs. We find there is a distinction between what buyers tend to prefer within the city and in the country club communities, and identifying and fulfilling those expressions is what makes our business so interesting and rewarding. For the purposes of this article, we will concentrate on our city homes.

4. In the City – We see a life-style in the city that is trending toward a less formal atmosphere while retaining a sense of style and elegance through simplicity in home design. There are not that many contiguous lots remaining, so many of our city homes are in-fill, meaning new homes built among well-established older homes. Often we are able to preserve some of the characteristics of the original landscaping, and we believe this gives a special character to our new construction home when it is finished.

3. Architectural Style – The in-town buyer likes the feel and character of a period home that fits in the neighborhood, but has all of the advantages of up-dated plumbing and heating systems, effective insulation, and built-in technology that provide energy-efficient, comfortable lifestyle for them but with the character and charm of the local
neighborhood.

2. Interior Style – Today’s buyer wants to experience the character of a life-style floor plan, but they want it to have clean lines, open view, and allow good flow from room to room for entertaining or shared family experiences. Tall ceilings, wide openings between rooms that are perhaps arched lead the sight-line through the house to built-in banquettes, enclosed porches, or outdoor living areas depending on the floor plan design.

Floor finishes in dark, rich 5” hardwoods remain popular, as well as the incorporation of stone in important areas. Trim casements, interior door styles tend to have clean lines in our city homes. Color palettes are highly individualized, but adding open beam work, stylized planking to ceiling treatments or the back walls of niche openings, is very popular and gives a fantastic, relevant look for the home.

The formal, separate dining room is not as essential to the City lifestyle as it has been in the past, with many electing to have a larger dining gallery rather than a separate breakfast room and formal dining room. Kitchen cabinets have clean lines, with hardware that is not over-stylized. Kitchen appliances tend to be very high end, and the exhaust hood over the range has become a work of art.

The master bedroom and bathroom will always be important. Buyers still want to have a fairly large bedroom, but we do see them reducing the size of those enormous master baths of the past that were impressive in size, but had yards of wasted space. Free-standing tubs, frameless showers with tile or stone treatment extended all the way up are popular, along with dual shower heads of a competent design. We find that buyers currently prefer painted cabinet finishes to the stained cabinets from several years ago.

1. Outdoor living space is still important to the city buyer. By offering a covered screen porch, perhaps with a wood-burning fireplace, the buyer extends its home and ability to entertain into an entirely different space. Stone patios or hardscape that includes a fire pit surrounded by sitting walls are very popular, and we find most buyers appreciate the Seller’s ability to provide a design for their landscape that might eventually include a pool. The big thing this year seems to be incorporating an outside kitchen design where the big Green Egg can be included as part of the grilling station.

Meril Missbach is the VP of sales and marketing at Peachland Homes, where she is charged with staying abreast of market research, recognizing developing trends and identifying opportunities. Meril is also responsible for designing and executing strategies that deliver against goals, ensuring consistent, profitable growth in sales revenues, and most importantly, demonstrating Peachland’s core values of excellence, service, passion and creativity. She was previously the associate/residential sales manager with Rialto Capital Management and the director of sales for Coldwell Banker Builder Developer Services.