Following a trend that has infiltrated much of the rest of the country, the nouveau riche have set their sights on New England. And while the new batch of dot-com millionaires may be causing ripples in social circles and expensive boutiques, it’s area homebuilders who have to make the most adjustments, some say.

The nouveau riche, or dot-com millionaires as some call them, tend to have ages ranging from their late 20s to mid-40s and have found new wealth from working in Internet-related companies. And, as builders will tell you, they’re particular about what they want in their new dream homes.

It’s absolutely amazing what these kids half my age come in and buy, said Kevin Giblin, senior vice president of Brendan Homes in Southborough who is in his late 40s and currently marketing a subdivision where home prices start at almost $900,000 and soar to the $2 million mark.

The difference in building houses in the last 24 to 36 months has been like night and day, he said. We’ve had 25 years of normal home building, and now this big change.

This guy came in the other day who wanted all these extras on his house, he recalled. He wanted this and this and this. By the time he was done the price went up a couple hundred grand, but instead of being worried about that price, he asks me ‘How much can I buy the lot next to me for, so I can have some privacy?’

Of the 24 homes Giblin is proposing for his Southborough development, Schipper Farms, four or five are already under agreement, and interest in the remaining properties is high. I’d say of all the people that have expressed interest, at least 85 percent of them are [in an] Internet-related [business], he said.

There’s nothing these people can’t afford, said Michael L. Durkin of Dallamora Realtors/GMAC Real Estate in Marlborough, who markets high-end newly constructed homes.

It’s put us in a whole different realm of customers. We used to build for a higher-end clientele, said M. Shepard Spear, vice president of the Home Builders Association of Massachusetts and a developer who recently re-entered the home construction market with a subdivision in Georgetown. We used to build for the doctor-lawyer world. These people are beyond the doctor-lawyer phase. These people have tons of money, and they know what they want.

Durkin has a term for the Internet-wealthy of the new century. Playing off the name Yuppies coined in the ’80s, Durkin calls the new generation the Young Urban Rich. They’re the Yurries, he said.

Homebuilders and real estate agents are finding out this newest breed of homebuyer knows what they want, and are demanding that they get it when they have their dream home built.

They all want high-speed access lines, Durkin said. So now we’re running fiber optic lines throughout the house when they’re built. He added that the demand for fiber-optic wiring is still relatively new, and builders he works with have only been regularly installing such wiring for three months.

High-speed Internet is the latest gadget, agreed Spear. But this stuff changes by the hour. It comes down to what’s the trinket of the day.

Richard Shook, chief operating officer of Winchester-based Automated Homes of New England, said high-tech home networking is on the rise in new homes as well as older homes being remodeled.

People want homes of a high-tech nature, and home networking is becoming a common request, he said. In the Greater Boston area, Shook estimated about 17 percent of new-construction homes have high-tech networks, and the demand is growing by 30 to 40 percent each year. He said possibly the only reason that the trend hasn’t spread faster is a lack of knowledge in the marketplace.

People don’t always know to ask for it, he said. If you ask the question, you can get it, but it’s not always on [the homebuyer’s] shopping list when they start off.

Quality-Driven
Demands from the nouveau riche are much more visible than high-tech wires hidden behind the plaster and wallpaper of a new luxury home, industry experts say.

They want granite kitchen counter tops, or solid wood block countertops, Durkin said. They want nine-foot-high ceilings, a big six-burner stove and stainless steel appliances throughout the kitchen.

Other things they want are built-ins, top-end items, and a lot of low-maintenance stuff, he continued. This is not the type of crowd to stay home all weekend sprucing up the house. On the weekends, this crowd is up and ready for action.

We have a demand for au-pair suites, so there’s room for someone to take care of the children, Giblin said. [The houses] have high-tech security systems, all the best appliances – Viking stoves and Sub-Zero refrigerators – high-tech entertainment centers and exotic hardwood floors.

Giblin said that while the newest batch of luxury homes are no doubt high-tech, they also represent a return to building methods of decades ago. They want bigger and better trim on the house, and cherry wood floors. They want better built homes, he said.

They want the quality that we saw 50 or 60 years ago, he continued. They want homes like those in Newton or Wellesley. It’s a whole change. We went to the big box home for a while, and now we’re back to something more traditional.

And in this new construction era, some say size doesn’t always matter.

It used to be people wanted to say ‘I have a bigger house than you,’ but now I think it’s more along the lines of ‘I have more gadgets than you, Durkin said.

While size may not always matter, homes in this market almost always tend to be large. Over the years the size of homes has increased due to the size of the lots increasing. As the lots get bigger, the homes get bigger, Spear said.

Giblin said in his experience, engineers that went from $65,000 to $70,000 before the IPO to a couple of million are happy with a regular-size house. But the guy that was at the top of the totem poll before the IPO wants a monster house. The executives want big houses with all the bells and whistles.

The extravagance of the dot-com millionaires may stir memories of the extravagance of the 1980s before the real estate market crashed, but those interviewed said the latest generation of the wealthy is distinct.

They’re willing to pay, but they’re very smart about what they’re buying, Giblin said. They’ve done their research, these dot-com guys.

A lot of people buy out of emotion. They may like the curb appeal of the home. But these guys are more interested in ‘What’s the HVAC system? What’s the wiring like? How many computers can I have on the network?’

Spear added that the dot-com generation of homebuyer usually comes looking for a new home armed with a host of research they have gotten off the Internet. They’re on the Net, they cruise to different towns, and when they find the location they want, they do it, he said.

These kids are different from the ’80s when people were driving around in [Ferrari] Testerosas, Giblin said. These kids aren’t like that. They’re not showboaty. Their feet are more grounded, and they’ve got real wealth.

They’re nice people, serious young people, with a lot of money.