56% of men and 43% of women aged 18-24 still live at home in the US. In Japan young adults that won’t leave home are called parasite singles (because they pay little or no rent) while in Australia they’re called boomerang kids (because you throw them out but they keep coming back). The high cost of real estate and student loans means that this trend will accelerate causing all sorts of social problems including young adults with no independence or initiative. The trend is also fuelling growth in so-called ‘Third Places’ (places that are in between home and work).

Will people watch TV in the future? The answer, I suspect, is yes but it depends on who you talk to. What does appear to be true is that younger generations have got a huge number of alternative choices targeted to their particular interests. As a result we would expect to see the TV licence in countries like the UK withdrawn and replaced by a computer tax within the next decade or two.

Companies want to cut costs and use technology instead of people and real estate wherever possible. This means that things like hospitals, libraries, post offices, schools and universities will all be trying to locate themselves in your home in the future. The argument is that this saves you (and them) time, which in turn makes things cheaper. This is rubbish. Few, if any, of the cost savings are passed on to end users and such moves ignore the simple fact that people like to deal with people face to face. However, one area where having it ‘under your roof’ might work is aged care.There is already a trend called Extended Financial Families where two and even three generations of a family live under one roof. This does indeed save money but also improves the level of personal care in some instances.

Twenty years ago everyone seemed to be moving out of cities which were full of grime and crime. These days everyone seems to be moving back in because that’s where everything seems to happen. However, the high cost of real estate in most cities will mean that cities become ghettos for gays, the rich, singles and childless couples. Everyone else will be in gated suburban communities or cheap housing. BTW – Scary stat: ratio of mobile homes to houses in gated communities in the US is 1:1.

By about 2025 70% of European rubbish landfills will be full. So expect to see more earth friendly design, increased use of biodegradable materials, healthy buildings (less use of chemical additives and synthetic materials) and increased use of recycled water and locally produced energy.

In case you haven’t noticed, your garden is supposed to be merging with the design of the inside of your house whilst the inside look is moving outside. Houses are also starting to look like resort hotels if you’ve got the money and other people are buying apartments in hotels. Meanwhile, ‘villages’ are being built in tower blocks while underground cities are expected to be built in places like Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok (giving new meaning to the phrase ‘suburban living’)

Every electronic household gadget you own is about to become obsolete. But don’t throw away those vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, turntables, black & white TVs or Apple clam shell computers away just yet. They’ll be considered retro quite soon as history becomes much sought after in the future.

What can we expect to see in the average home in ten or twenty years time? Here’s a list: 3-D printers , dream machines (basic versions already available in Japan), electronic pets, air quality monitoring devices (will people pay more for clean air?), ubiquitous imbedded intelligence in everyday products and appliances, intelligent paint and wallpaper, wearable computers (smart clothing) and 3D TV.

In the US the self-storage industry is now bigger than Hollywood. This is because people buy too much stuff and then can’t face the idea of throwing anything away. Companies are just as bad. The paperless office seems like just another ridiculous prediction as we print out endless emails and keep hard copies of worthless presentations. We predict that throwing things away will be a big future trend.

Faith Popcorn’s cocooning phenomenon is still alive and well thanks to everything from 9/11 and SARS to ‘speeding up’ and Too Much Technology (TMT). As a result people will spend more and more money on their homes and gardens turning houses into mini spa resorts and gardens into havens of relaxation.