Tony Trella

           Our class had the privilege to listen to Mr. Tony Trella. Tony has a very broad work experience in both commercial development and residential. Tony was the president of one of the most important development companies in the world, and all of a sudden he decided to call it quits. Tony went from having over a 1000 employees to only working for himself as a consultant. Tony focused in residential market in America and its history. Tony emphasizes that with history we sill be able to figure out what will be the next big idea for residential development, or at least have an idea as to where we are headed.

            Tony’s lecture was really interesting, he focused most of his lecture on how the residential market evolved to the market we have today. He first starts by talking about World War II and how the market was back then. During 1946-1947 most of the residential market was rental market, but demand was so high during that time that something had to be done. A man named William Levitt made a major breakthrough in the residential market by building in empty farms, small 2 bedrooms houses all in the same parcel of land, creating what we know today as master communities with an assembly line mentality. Back then the American dream was to own a house, if you owned a house it basically means that you are doing well. Tony also talked about how interstate highway system has been crucial to the evolution of real estate, this is completely true because without interstate highways we would not be able to travel to the developments, and mass use of this structures would not be possible.

            The thing that stuck with me the most out of Mr. Tony lecture was, how he stressed that we should be looking for the next big idea in development like Mr. Levitt did in the past, focusing on innovation and differentiating our projects from the rest by building affordable houses because that is were the demand is. If we are successful on doing so, it does not matter how weak the residential market is or how weak the economy is because the average American making 60-70 grand a year cannot afford the houses we have in the market today. I agree with Tony and this subject is something that really sticks with me. Right now the housing market is really expensive and it makes it harder and harder for the average Joe to afford a house. I think in the future we will be able to evolve as a society and more affordable housing will be available for us.