Major homebuilders are prioritizing narrower houses with fewer doors, windows and cabinets. Median homes sizes are at a 13-year low.
The new American home is shrinking.
After years of prioritizing large homes, the nation’s biggest and most powerful home builders are finally building more smaller ones, driving a shift toward more affordable housing.
The boom in smaller construction has cut median new-home sizes by 4 percent in the past year, to 2,179 square feet, census data shows, the lowest reading since 2010. That’s helped bring down overall costs and contributed to a 6 percent dip in new-home prices in the same period.
Townhouses, in particular, are increasingly popular, accounting for 1 in 5 new homes under construction at the end of 2023, a record high, according to an analysis of census data by the National Association of Home Builders. To cut costs, companies are building smaller and taller, with fewer windows, cabinets and doors.
The median size is still 2,179 square feet, or about 200 square meters. That’s still stupidly large. The average US family is 3 people, you could cut that house-size in half and it would still be fine.
I’ve had a family of four in 1500 sq ft houses and it’s more than enough. I’d trade floor space for more bathrooms, though
Truth! I am comfortable in a 400 square foot apartment with a live-in partner and (until recently) a small dog.
Sure, I’d love to have a little more space. Might be nice to have 800 square feet. Even that feels larger than we need.
The idea that houses need to be that big is just so absurd. No reasonable person who isn’t rich is entertaining guests at home anymore, nobody needs this excess.
The problem is that more square metres doesn’t mean more useful functionality. I recall going into a model home and it had no less than three dining tables set up. You could entertain an inaugural ball, but the bedrooms were still chintzy 3m x 3m boxes, no dedicated office/library/etc, tiny pantry and laundry room.
I feel like an ideal home design would offer two more bedroom-size rooms than residents:
One as a dedicated office so you can remote work without having to appropriate the dining table, and one semi-finished for hobby room for activities that are space intensive, require special equipment, ventilation, etc. Think “woodworking or 3D printing shop”, “LAN party/gaming/home theatre room”, “model railway setup permanently built in room.”
OTOH, some of this could be compromised if similar facilities were provided in a community centre instead. I want to see the retirement neighbourhood built around a maker space and library instead of golf courses and pickleball courts.
My wife and I (and our cat) are in a just over 900 sq. ft. apartment. The two things I’d like are a larger pantry and more closet space. Otherwise it’s perfect.
We’re not rich, and we have people over for Cities without Numbers, but 6 people fit around a table.
You can entertain at a sane level without needing a living room, a sitting room, a dining room, an eat-in kitchen, a rec room, and 3 spare guest bedrooms.
Paying $3000 a month for a 1 bed converted to two. No dining space as a 2 bed, and a galley kitchen. My 2 very big but young children eat off a coffee table. Wheeeeeeeee.
Well, the article is about how sane-sized housing options are leading to more affording living spaces, and builders are beginning to prioritize affordability over McMansions. So hopefully this will lead to you being able to improve your living situation if you can’t move to an affordable city, since more options should reduce demand, which should reduce prices.
Wages and housing will not catch up from 40 years of stagnation. Buying power will likely never be the same, even for something smaller, before climate change wrecks the economy.
Damn… my house is only 1700 square feet and I thought it was at least average in size. (Yes, I realize median and average aren’t necessarily the same, but still…)
Also, it would be a lot smaller than 1700 square feet except we have a 2-car garage. Only one car goes in, we just use the rest as storage space… so it’s not really all that important. We could definitely go down some.
My house is 706 sq ft. It’s perfect for me and my pets.
Residential shrinkflation…
The article mentions home size, but the other half of the equation is lot size. The lot equivalent of the empty nester couple living in a five-bed three-bath house is the the 1-2 acre property that’s almost entirely grass, with a handful of ornamental shrubs and maybe a tree or two. Rural farmland is getting absolutely gobbled up by people who complain about having to mow the law every other week in summer (or how much money they “had” to spend on a riding mower). Every square foot of every lot not covered by building is space that, collectively, could have been productive land (like a farm/community garden), public land (like a park), more housing (“our city is full” the fuck it is, you could fit a sixplex in your personal backyard), or wildlife habitat. No, your English Laurel is not habitat, it’s an invasive species. No your neighborhood isn’t a thriving ecosystem because there are deer everywhere; in fact that’s pretty good evidence that the food chain is missing a link. Maybe I’m just bitter because I’m currently having to meticulously plan out every square inch of my apartment postage-stamp yard to maximize vegetable production in a part-shade environment alongside the building in a pitiful attempt at self-sufficiency while I’m surrounded on all sides by huge (10k sqft - 1/2 acre) properties with full sun grassy yards that I have never once seen used by the owners for any activity except keeping said grass meticulously mowed. Like JFC if you’re not going to use your yard at all at least throw the local bee population a bone by letting the dandelions flower on occasion. And then there’s the transportation impact of sprawling cities: of course everyone drives long distances to get anywhere and there’s no public transit option: there’s only a few dozen houses in the miles between here and the grocery store so not enough density to support a bus, nor enough density to support a closer grocery store. And now people here are so used to driving everywhere that there’s no incentive for cycling or walking infrastructure either because “everyone drives so no one would use it.” There’s a lot of talk about how bigger houses are climate disasters because they’re more energy intensive to operate, well we should also mention that bigger lots are also climate disasters for inducing more driving (and create bizarre standards for minimize size housing because “smaller houses wouldn’t fit in with the existing neighborhood character”).
Commercial properties aren’t exempt; standalone chains (like many fast food restaurants, banks, car washes, etc) especially seem to always get built on oversized lots, especially if a drive thru is involved, even in fairly urban settings. But people tend to be less possessive of these properties; it’s not often someone whines that replacing the local Arby’s with more commercial density would “destroy the neighborhood” like replacing single-family housing with even slightly denser single-family housing (“oh no, the eye-sore skinny houses are invading!” skinny houses are only ugly because they’re required by code to include built-in garages you architecturally-illiterate cretin).
As someone who builds homes I can say with certainty that American homeowners are fucking idiots. They’re so plainly stupid it’s sad. The rich ones are even worse.
I’m curious, please explain.
I mean they should have been building multi family homes rather than suburbs for 40 years. They have been stupid and keep being that, the rich are worse.
It was obvious back in the 80’s how it should have went but there are too many forces butting heads within the industry and the government (which leads our way of life).
The “it’s not broke don’t fix it” attitude has had terrible repercussions. Not updating our way of life over the past 40 years has led to a lot of destruction. Not only have these dumb as shit huge houses cost us environmentally on the front end, they also fill up landfills on the back end when a disaster strikes AND it’s happening more often thanks to Exxon and Co.
On one house build we had to fight a wildfire that took one home, and 22 acres also burned. It was nuts. I have seen a lot of crazy shit out there.
But the public (homeowners) have rarely said “let me get this small house.” It’s more like which gated community can I afford? That’s who fills up the landfills the most. Because these houses aren’t even good. A large multi family has a higher chance to survive a disaster simply due to the way codes are written, region dependent ofc.
Even in the rural areas. They want as big as possible. I had ONE person build a small home intentionally. But I think that was due to financial constraints tbh.
Look, people and their habits. They are used to big homes and will keep doing so. The people who can afford to build will build at a lower cost and right now that means lower sf.
If the market rebounds like after 2008 (i doubt it unless Biden gets back in) then people will go big again regardless of the climate. Just like they did with Hummers and SUVs. They took a hit and now look at those things. Fucking huge for no goddamn reason.
Thank you, I think you’re spot on on all that.
