The dramatic increase in the number of people working from home has prompted a surge in interest in three-storey properties at Miller Homes’ Banbury Chase development in Oxfordshire.
With around a quarter of the UK’s workforce now working exclusively from home, househunters have started shifting their focus to homes that allow them to create separate living and working environments.
In Oxfordshire, new homes builder Miller Homes has seen a 215% increase in people looking for online information on its three-storey Edale house type at its Banbury Chase development on Warwick Road. The figures show a rapid increase between July and October this year, compared to the previous four months, when homeworking started to become a more long-term solution.
The Edale house type features a spacious living and dining area and separate kitchen on the ground floor, as well a master bedroom with en-suite on the second floor. Floor one is made up of two further bedrooms and a bathroom, with many buyers choosing to use this floor as a workspace as it allows them to separate the working environment from their living and sleeping areas.
Author and psychologist Dr Phil Parker explains the importance of this: “With work and home life becoming less distinct from each other, it’s even more important now to find a way to create a balance and set boundaries between them. One valuable solution is to physically separate the spaces where we work from the rest of our activities – this can be achieved by tidying work things away at the end of the day or assigning different rooms to work in.
“Ways of effectively managing these daily pressures are starting to influence how forwarding thinking designers are planning our homes of the future.”
Tracey Forbes-Taylor, Managing Director for Miller Homes in the South, added: “Our buyers’ requirements are changing. For many, having a separate workspace or study area has shifted from being a ‘nice to have’ to a priority.
“The Edale lends itself well to the concept of zoning and helping to create a real sense of work/life balance. We’re finding that buyers don’t want a work station set up on a dining room table or in the corner of their bedroom, they want an area they can use as a proper home office that they can shut the door on at the end of the working day and relax.
“With working from home rapidly becoming the norm, it’s going to be even more important going forwards.
To find out more about the three-bedroom Edale at Banbury Chase, visit www.millerhomes.co.uk.