We are all dreamers. We love to stargaze about what the future holds. Early in 2019, even this column got in on the act with a story about a "Future House."

But just how well do we predict what's going to happen five, 10 or 20 years down the road? We rarely look back to find out. But the folks at Angie's List recently commissioned NeoMam Studios to return to yesteryear to see how close prognostications from the 20th century came to what actually occurred.

As it turns out, some of the more fanciful ideas put forth back then were just that: fanciful.

Specifically, the British marketing firm looked at six rooms -- the living room, kitchen, master bedroom, game room, bathroom and dressing room -- as envisioned by home designers during the previous century.

"Some of the era's wildest ideas" were about these rooms, NeoMam's report says. "Sometimes wacky, sometimes idealistic and sometimes not too far off what we see in 2020 homes, these visions for the future from past generations are an untapped resource of inspiration for homeowners who want to take risks and create spaces that are unique."

The report is a follow-up to one on how previous generations imagined the houses of today would look. And similarly, the most outlandish of their ideas -- a ball-like rolling house, for example, offered by Everyday Science and Mechanics in 1943 -- failed to gain any traction.

In the latest return to the future, NeoMam discovered one prediction that everything in the houses of the 21st century would be waterproof so that the "housewife" -- men didn't do housework back then -- could just use a hose to clean her manse.

In the living room, then, the furniture, rugs, draperies and "unscratchable" floors would be made of either a synthetic waterproof fabric or plastic. A blast of hot air would dry the room's contents, while the excess water would run to a drain in the floor. Presumably, the floor would be slightly slanted toward the drain the way it is in a shower and tub. And when Mom was not doing heavy cleaning, the drain would be covered by a rug.

In the kitchen, meanwhile, refrigerators were predicted to have revolving shelves, which may not be too far off from what is available in today's models -- some of them make two types of ice cubes, for crying out loud.

Another prediction was the advent of marble countertops. But in this case, the countertop itself would be an induction-heated cooking surface. The oven, meanwhile, would be a glass-doomed unit that sat at the end of the counter.

In the master bedroom, a 1960s prediction that the television set would hang from the ceiling didn't come to pass, nor did the notion that the set's control would be inset in a bedside table. But those ideas weren’t far off. Today, we use handheld remotes to control our wall-hung TVs.

Game rooms? How about an indoor pool with partially submerged, swim-up gaming systems? Never happened.

In 1988, Robert Zemeckis, the writer/director of "Back to the Future," commissioned consultants Tim Flattery and Edward Eyth to dream up what the bathroom would be like in 2015. Some of their ideas made it in to the film, but most didn't.

One that failed to make the grade was the bio-cleanse cleaning chamber, an environmentally progressive unit that conserves water by using a steam spray and heat lamps for bathing and drying. Other failed-to-materialize items include an in-wall waste disposal outlet and a computerized medical diagnosis and treatment center.

Eight years before Marty McFly and Doc Brown flew their DeLorean time machine back and forth between timelines, famed French artists conceived of dressing rooms that contained, among other things, a machine that would cut and style a lady's hair. Not even close. Today, the closest we come to dressing rooms are oversize master baths and sitting rooms.

As far as the house itself is concerned, of the seven "sometimes astute, sometimes idealistic, often absurd" concepts NeoMam looked at in its earlier study for Angie's List, none made it in to production. But some offered ideas that weren't far off the mark.

Take the Dome House featured in the June 1957 issue of Mechanix Illustrated. Its rotating dome would allow occupants to make use of solar energy by following the sun as it rose in the east and set in the west.

The authors of "Unfinished World" spoke of using super-light "aerogels" to create earthquake-resistant structures that would require fewer resources to build. Today, graphene aerogel, the world's lightest material, can be used in 3D printers to create all sorts of things, including buildings.

Other schemes were out of this world. For the New York World's Fair in 1964, General Motors proposed an underwater house. And from the 1920s, a glass house that would admit ultraviolet "health rays" from the sun was offered. But the glass used in the house became a commercial failure.

And then there was the aforementioned rolling house, circa 1934. The spherical innovation was intended to make remote construction and delivery of new houses easier. But it didn't. The space house offered by Science Fiction Adventures magazine in 1953 didn't fly, either.

For a look at the concepts mentioned here, as well as others in the two reports, check out: bit.ly/future-rooms and bit.ly/future-houses.

There are at least three things in life you cannot choose: your parents, your neighbors and the company that administers your mortgage.

That company collects your house payments, and also pays your homeowner’s insurance and property taxes. Known as “servicers,” these outfits work on behalf of your lender -- or the investor who purchased your loan from your lender -- to make sure you make your payments and that those other bills are paid.

Sometimes a lender services its loans itself. Sometimes it sells the servicing aspect of your mortgage, but keeps the loan on its books. Sometimes the lender sells the loan and the rights to service it. And sometimes one servicer will sell the right to administer your loan to another servicer.

Whichever way it goes, you have no choice. You’re stuck.

According to Mike Seminari of the Stratmor Group, an industry advisory firm, of the 52% of all borrowers who had contacted their servicers, only 6% said they were likely to recommend the company. That’s not exactly a strong vote of confidence.

Of course, it could be that these unhappy customers simply didn’t receive the help they were looking for. Or maybe their discontent is related to a billing mistake -- 6% of all loans held by lenders have billing errors, according to Seminari -- or another error, perceived or legitimate.

Whatever the reason, servicers have now figured out that it costs them a lot less money to reach out to their customers rather than wait for calls to come in.

“’Don’t poke a sleeping bear’ is no longer the philosophy,” said Dave Vida of SLS Enterprise Sales at a recent conference. Servicers now realize that “outreach is vital. We need to find out what’s going on” with borrowers before they feel the need to call in.

In that regard, you should expect to receive a clear, concise welcome letter from your servicer -- one “written by a human being,” said Jason Kwasny of The Money Source Inc., not a computer. Call it a “warm transfer.”

The letter should explain everything you need to know about how your loan will be administered, and include all pertinent phone numbers, should you ever experience a problem. And the letter “should be followed up by a welcome phone call” that walks the borrower through the process, added Kwasny.

“If you spend time up-front, you eliminate problems later,” said Kwasny. “Give them a white-glove experience.”

Meanwhile, in another conference session, experts in cybercrime described how the financial services business -- and the mortgage sector, in particular -- has become a favored target of hackers looking to tie up their systems and demand big money to unlock them.

The health care field is hackers’ No. 1 target, reported Gretchan Francis of Proctor Financial, but financial services is a close second. Even off-the-shelf software is being peddled online to novice hackers looking to make a quick buck, she said.

“The bad guys really are out there,” added Rich Hill of the Mortgage Bankers Association, which sponsored the conference. “They’re all over the place, trying to find new ways to get in.”

Over the last 12 months, Evan Bredahl, a cybersecurity engineer with the Richey May advisory firm, has worked on 20 ransomware cases in the mortgage space, many of them involving servicers. He can’t talk about the details because of nondisclosure agreements, but he did say that half the problems emanated from malware contained in emails.

Truth be told, though, the malware could have been delivered weeks, months or even years ago, with the hacker just biding their time, waiting to flip the switch, Francis said.

Lenders and servicers are taking whatever precautions they think necessary to protect themselves and their data. Cybercrime is both “preventable” and “defendable,” said the MBA’s Hill.

But sometimes, a hacker manages to get in no matter what. When that happens, their targets’ businesses can be stopped in their tracks.

On average, companies that report being hacked say their systems are down for 16 days, Hill reported. But the true duration could be longer, because not all attacks are reported -- largely because of the public relations nightmare that kind of news could generate.

If companies can restore their systems in a few days, or if only part of their business is taken down, they often ignore the ransom demands. But if the entire company is shut down, the ransom paid by servicers can be huge. In one case cited by Francis, a company paid $8.5 million to get back in business.

And why not? If you can’t operate, it’s often cheaper to pay the ransom and be done with it. “If you can’t access your accounts, you can’t service your loans,” said Bredahl, who is a “certified ethical hacker” -- a tech expert who looks for security vulnerabilities. “Being out of business just one week could be more damaging than paying a hacker millions.”

Ironically, though, once the ransom money is paid, most hackers make sure their marks manage to get back up and running without any hitches. Some even give their targets a 30-day guarantee that they will become operational and remain that way.

“Their customer service is so unreal, it’s shocking,” said Hill. “It’s their business; it’s how they make money,” he explained. “Otherwise, no one would pay the ransom.”

Much is written about housing starts, which add to the nation’s housing stock. But rarely do we hear about the houses that leave the rolls, never to be occupied again.

Between 2011 and 2013 (the last time the federal government took count), nearly 1.6 million housing units were lost for various reasons. But that number was offset by the addition of 1.84 million new units, for a net gain of more than 250,000.

That’s far from the nearly 1 million new households that formed during that period, but that’s a story for another day. Right now, let’s concentrate on the housing units that went away.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, demolitions and fire took out 30% of the units that were lost. The rest were moved, reconfigured into larger or smaller units, used for nonresidential purposes or otherwise became uninhabitable.

Let’s concentrate on those lost through demolition. The National Association of Home Builders reports that in 2017, 58,600 houses were removed from their lots to make way for newer, almost always larger, houses. Many of them were obsolete places that nobody wanted, and the land under most was probably more valuable than the houses themselves. But instead of being demolished, at least some could have been deconstructed: taken apart systematically so their parts could be reused.

“Many of these older homes have components that still have valuable life,” says Michelle Diller. She manages the NAHB’s sustainability and green building program, and is leading the charge for what she calls “un-building.”

Brick can last 100 years or longer, according to the NAHB, as can wood flooring, stone, concrete and cast iron pipes. Copper gutters and downspouts last 50 years or longer; ditto for kitchen cabinets.

What if builders stripped out the good stuff -- cabinetry, doors, windows, bathroom fixtures, hardwood floors -- before bulldozing old dwellings? Then those materials could be used in remodeling jobs, incorporated into new construction, or sold.

Not only would builders save (or make) money, they could avoid the cost of transporting and disposing of the materials. Or maybe they’d earn points that help them certify new construction as energy-efficient.

Toward that end, a few jurisdictions require that certain houses be deconstructed rather than turned asunder. Some places offer expedited permitting for the houses that take their place, and others won’t accept demolition materials at their landfills.

The Environmental Protection Agency convened a forum two years ago on the life-cycle approach to sustainably managing building materials, and has produced a tool to help builders and cities determine whether deconstruction is feasible. But to date, only a few cities and a handful of builders have taken up the gauntlet.

In 2016, two years before the EPA conference, Portland, Oregon, became the first jurisdiction in the country to adopt an ordinance requiring anyone seeking to demolish a house built prior to 1916 to fully deconstruct the structure instead. To date, according to the city, a third of the 240 demo permits issued fell under the ordinance, resulting in more than 2 million pounds of materials salvaged for reuse.

Starting this year, Portland has upped the threshold to houses built before 1940. Milwaukee passed a similar ordinance in 2018 for houses built prior to 1929, but stayed the rule’s effective date until March 1 of this year. And Palo Alto, California, where 44% of what goes into its landfills comes from construction and demolition projects, will outlaw demolitions altogether beginning July 1.

Meanwhile, builder Troy Johns of Urban NW Homes, who works mostly in downtown Portland, figures he’s done nearly a dozen deconstructions. Much of what he’s saved -- “the pretty stuff,” he says, like moldings, bathtubs and millwork -- has been repurposed into dozens of new houses.

A lot of the old-growth studs are either sold or given to Johns’ “lumber guy,” who turns the wood into tables, chairs and shutters Johns buys back to use in his replacement houses. Any doors with character are also saved, cleaned up and reused.

The effort is not financially feasible in and of itself. But a tax rebate offered by the city, plus the points earned toward Johns’ all-important green building certification, make it worthwhile, he says. That, and the fact the repurposed materials enhance the saleability of his new houses.

“People are conscious of what we’re doing,” he says, “Few others are doing it. It takes a lot of time and effort, but it is very satisfying. It sets us apart.”

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, Texas, Don Ferrier of Ferrier Custom Homes says preservation is one of his core values, and has been since his Scottish stonemason great-granddaddy began building houses in the early 1900s. Ferrier did his first deconstruction in the late ‘90s, saving the studs and hardwood floor from a remodeling project and reusing them elsewhere in the house.

“Every time we do a remodel, we talk about this with the owners,” says Ferrier, who’s done 30 or so deconstructions. He says that “80% of them come to us because they are interested in sustainability.”

He repurposes “anything that makes sense -- windows, doors, solid surface countertops, light fixtures” -- and donates things he can’t use to Habitat for Humanity. “We try not to throw anything in the dumpster.”

Typically, it’s a more expensive process, Ferrier admits. Taking up flooring, stripping it and refinishing it isn’t cheap. But 70% of his clients opt in.