I used to have a 1500 sqft house. Next was a 1600 sqft house. Now, a 3300 sqft house.
I miss the 1500 sqft house so much.
Our current house has a 3/4 acre yard bordering on 20 acres of preserve/park, so I love that, but I would still take the small house on the 1/4 acre over this, since I live near plenty of nature opportunities anyway.
I'm genuinely curious - how did you manage 1500 sq ft with two kids? I've seen various outlets that state most people need roughly 450 sq ft, and we currently have 900 sq ft for me and my wife and that feels right, maybe even slightly big. I wanted an 1750-1800 sq ft home and my wife wants closer to 2200-2250. So I'm shocked you felt comfortable with 1500 sq ft and wonder what made the house so nice. Was it layout? Efficient use of wall space?
The author of this page has made critical errors in either interpreting or creating many of the graphs on the page.
> Another housing trend that popped up in 2014 was the rise in homes with four or more bedrooms.
If you actually look at the graph, the rise in 4+ bedrooms had been going since 1985. In 2014 it just became the most popular.
> Demand for fireplaces has been cooling since the ’90s with 2007 being the first year that more homes were built without the feature than with.
Actually, that would be 2010. The "None" point is plotted higher than the "1" point in 2007 but still definitely below the 50% mark.
> The average square feet of floor area in a newly completed single-family home was down 2 percent or 56 square feet in 2017 from the high mark.
The graph above has percentages in the y-axis rather than square feet...no idea what happened there. Plus, it is somewhat misleading! In the real data chart [0, page 9], the median square footage actually increased in 2017, while the average did decrease. Additionally, this difference appears to be within the relative standard error window.
One thing that I always think about with these absurd HGTV house shows is who is going to clean all of these extra bathrooms? When you've got 3-4 bathrooms, and 2000+ square feet, you will have to spend a nontrivial amount of time cleaning every week. Or hire it out.
Oh, and I really, really, really, never want to hear the term "bonus room" used ever again.
Bigger houses tend to not get dirty as quickly. But it is more nooks and crannies that need attention on an infrequent basis. So many houses I step into have parts that have never been cleaned since they took ownership. Wow it gets nasty!
This is only new single-family homes. I would guess the vast majority of these are in the far-reaching suburbs of large cities. I wonder - how would this look if you plotted # of bedrooms (or one of the other data points being discussed) versus how far from the nearest major city the house is being built?
I have a 1300 square foot home with 3 bedrooms & 1.5 bathrooms. While my wife and I don't have kids, I'm happy with the size. Anything bigger and I feel like it'd be overkill for us. I wish the floorplan was a little more open or could be easier to open up, but otherwise I feel the size is perfect for our needs.
Obviously if children enter the picture, things might change, but I feel like having a house that's too big is more of a pain than it's worth...especially when you need to clean for company.
>People with more money to spend typically want five bedrooms with bathrooms, porcelain tile and quartz countertops. “Most everything we’re doing at this price point includes a garage that fits a minimum of four cars,” Jackson says. “We just finished a home that had a nine-car garage.”
Yep, at least around the DC Metro area. With Cyber Command and all the associated cyber stuff bringing in tons of people, most new housing developments I've seen are almost as dense as town homes in Baltimore, there's just a little more space between the sides of the houses, and there is usually a small front yard instead of being right up against the sidewalk.
No, and they typically aren't allowed by modern zoning restrictions. I'm in a house from the mid-1910s and my lot is a third of what is required for new construction in other parts of the city.
Depends in location. Most builders want bigger jobs: it's better to build 5 big houses than 10 little ones. We were looking at building a smallish house and the builder thought we were crazy for wanting a 1300sqft cottage. Ended up being only slightly cheaper than a 2000sqft place. What builders in the us don't get that some in europe do is some people prefer quality over quantity.
It seems less and less prevalent. Most of the modest 1-story homes in my hometown have been steadily replaced over the past 10-15 years with obnoxious McMansions with very little space in between them. Square footage is the cheapest thing you can add to a house's up-front cost (key emphasis on "up-front") and fetches large premiums on home value. Just the reality of the market I guess.
Not to be pedantic, but that house pictured isn't a McMansion, on the virtue that the windows match and there isn't a giant garage turret tumor thing stapled to one of the sides
Still an interesting article however; with all this talk about people repopulating cities and cutting back it seems the data still shows people love living large
If you work at home, that’s a bedroom off for office.
I also build synths and electronics and firearms, that’s a bedroom off for workshop/music.
Weight room. Guest bedroom for when friends visit. Master bedroom for me, partner bedroom to save relationship sanity.
That’s six for just two adults, and I still haven’t racked the servers and switches in my lab. I think the mistake is thinking of them as bedrooms and not general purpose rooms for activities that require equipment/storage.
I wonder how much of this demand are multi-generational homes (e.g. parents, spouse, kids all in the same house). Those are very common in, say, Chinese families.
I'm not sure that the demand in new home building is the same thing as the overall demand for homes. People who want to build new suburban (cookie-cutter) homes are not the entirety of our society. I'd trust data and feedback from real estate agents more than I would from home builders.
That’s good for us because we don’t want a big home and depressed demand for them will probably mean a cheaper starter home for us.
I used to be averse to the idea of buying an older, smaller home, but my wife is insistent on it. The more I think about it, the more I think she has the right idea.
I call BS on the single-story build rate > 40%. Finding my current home in 2015 - a single-story - took a lot longer because they weren't that many on the market at a given time. Some were under contract in less than one day on the market! But I am confusing build rate with market availability.
The blame will fall on HGTV for some of the problem.
Another factor is profitability - a 2000 sqft house costs less than 2x to build than a 1000 sqft house, but within the same hypothetical neighborhood, will probably cost 2x or more because of the additional features that additional floor space makes possible.
"a 2000 sqft house costs less than 2x to build than a 1000 sqft house, but within the same hypothetical neighborhood, will probably cost 2x or more"
That's certainly not true where I am. The lot is 75% or more of the total value. Even if the bigger house is 4x the value for 1.5x the build cost, that's still not 2x the total purchase price, and those are wildly optimistic numbers. I suspect the same is true in most high-cost neighborhoods. Building bigger nicer houses does improve the ROI somewhat, but that's like an optimization after picking the right lots in the right neighborhoods.
Averages are always misleading - in this case I wonder if single story builds are weighted towards 50+ elder communities (they are in our area) which throws off the distribution.
[+] [-] checkyoursudo|7 years ago|reply
I used to have a 1500 sqft house. Next was a 1600 sqft house. Now, a 3300 sqft house.
I miss the 1500 sqft house so much.
Our current house has a 3/4 acre yard bordering on 20 acres of preserve/park, so I love that, but I would still take the small house on the 1/4 acre over this, since I live near plenty of nature opportunities anyway.
[+] [-] acconrad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] no_protocol|7 years ago|reply
> Another housing trend that popped up in 2014 was the rise in homes with four or more bedrooms.
If you actually look at the graph, the rise in 4+ bedrooms had been going since 1985. In 2014 it just became the most popular.
> Demand for fireplaces has been cooling since the ’90s with 2007 being the first year that more homes were built without the feature than with.
Actually, that would be 2010. The "None" point is plotted higher than the "1" point in 2007 but still definitely below the 50% mark.
> The average square feet of floor area in a newly completed single-family home was down 2 percent or 56 square feet in 2017 from the high mark.
The graph above has percentages in the y-axis rather than square feet...no idea what happened there. Plus, it is somewhat misleading! In the real data chart [0, page 9], the median square footage actually increased in 2017, while the average did decrease. Additionally, this difference appears to be within the relative standard error window.
[0]: https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/squarefeet.pdf
[+] [-] thrower123|7 years ago|reply
Oh, and I really, really, really, never want to hear the term "bonus room" used ever again.
[+] [-] FireBeyond|7 years ago|reply
(... for what, 2 weeks a year?).
[+] [-] arielweisberg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brianwawok|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crazcarl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kpwags|7 years ago|reply
Obviously if children enter the picture, things might change, but I feel like having a house that's too big is more of a pain than it's worth...especially when you need to clean for company.
[+] [-] senorjazz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iforgotpassword|7 years ago|reply
In my experience, a bigger apartment just means you'll collect more junk over time. The bigger your home, the faster it fills up.
[+] [-] squozzer|7 years ago|reply
I just contracted McMansion Garage Envy. Maybe with a dash of prepper amenities such as an RTG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
and a protected well.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dx87|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kasey_junk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrooched_moose|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] feistypharit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bootsz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amluto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] denimnerd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neap24|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomatotomato37|7 years ago|reply
Still an interesting article however; with all this talk about people repopulating cities and cutting back it seems the data still shows people love living large
[+] [-] newnewpdro|7 years ago|reply
https://www.bankrate.com/mortgages/mcmansion-envy-spreads-as...
[+] [-] sctb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sneak|7 years ago|reply
I also build synths and electronics and firearms, that’s a bedroom off for workshop/music.
Weight room. Guest bedroom for when friends visit. Master bedroom for me, partner bedroom to save relationship sanity.
That’s six for just two adults, and I still haven’t racked the servers and switches in my lab. I think the mistake is thinking of them as bedrooms and not general purpose rooms for activities that require equipment/storage.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cbhl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codingdave|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nunez|7 years ago|reply
I used to be averse to the idea of buying an older, smaller home, but my wife is insistent on it. The more I think about it, the more I think she has the right idea.
[+] [-] squozzer|7 years ago|reply
I call BS on the single-story build rate > 40%. Finding my current home in 2015 - a single-story - took a lot longer because they weren't that many on the market at a given time. Some were under contract in less than one day on the market! But I am confusing build rate with market availability.
The blame will fall on HGTV for some of the problem.
Another factor is profitability - a 2000 sqft house costs less than 2x to build than a 1000 sqft house, but within the same hypothetical neighborhood, will probably cost 2x or more because of the additional features that additional floor space makes possible.
[+] [-] notacoward|7 years ago|reply
That's certainly not true where I am. The lot is 75% or more of the total value. Even if the bigger house is 4x the value for 1.5x the build cost, that's still not 2x the total purchase price, and those are wildly optimistic numbers. I suspect the same is true in most high-cost neighborhoods. Building bigger nicer houses does improve the ROI somewhat, but that's like an optimization after picking the right lots in the right neighborhoods.
[+] [-] michaelbuckbee|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thatfrenchguy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|7 years ago|reply
If it's being built in an energy efficient manner, it may actually wind up better all things considered.
[+] [-] shiftoutbox|7 years ago|reply
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