Size of Average Home Peaking and Expected To Shrink In The Future
The era of the McMansion is over according to the folk at the Association of Home Builders. They state that the consumer is looking to jettison the living room and gain space in the master bedrooms, kitchen, and family rooms.
For the most part I agree with this, but there is a caveat that should be throw in. Over the past couple of years we have seen a huge increase in the costs of heating and cooling todays homes. Energy costs have skyrocketed and thus the expense of maintaining square footage that is unused is being questioned.
Our house has a 1,600 square foot office in it. Up until this past year I have had my office down in part of the basement, but the heating and cooling costs were going up, so we moved my office to the unused living room and we are saving some money. A little bit noisier but overall not a bad trade not having to have the heating and cooling units running constantly.
Although the size of the average home has been on the rise, to 2,495 last year from 1,500 square feet in 1973, consumers are beginning to choosse higher quality living spaces over additional square footage, according to Ahluwalia, who spoke at the recent International Builders Show in Orlando, Fla.
Architects, designers, manufacturers, and marketing experts who were asked by NAHB about their expectations for future homes agreed that home size would slip into the 2,300- to 2,500-square-foot range by 2015.
NAHB says that two-story homes will continue to dominate as increasing construction costs drive choices. “As housing prices go up, so too does the share of two-story homes goes up says Ahluwalia, noting that two story construction is less expensive than one story on a square-foot basis. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 55 percent of the homes built in 2005 had two or more stories. via REALTOR® Magazine
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Comment by Robert Coté on 27 March 2007:
Although it is implied, it is important to note the 2,495 sq ft home size metric is for new homes and is an average, not a median figure. New homes last year only added approximately 1.5% to the total of all housing stock.
Comment by Ed on 28 March 2007:
It will be interesting to see if the builders are influenced by the excess supply of homes in the market and if that causes them to change their mind on sq. footage. If builders are forced to hold a property longer due to market conditions, perhaps they will opt to hold back some of the construction costs to manage the float they have in bank loans. That can put them in a bad position if existing homes on the market have more sq footage at the same price. Perhaps they will increase the sq. footage but hold back on the ammenities.
– The Open House Network – ROpenHouse
Comment by Danilo Bogdanovic on 31 March 2007:
How about these other possible reasons:
1) You can put more homes on the same land if they’re smaller in size therefore increasing builder’s profits.
2) Children are getting more and more expensive to have by the day! Smaller the household, smaller the home needed.
(I know, the last one may be far fetched, but thought I’d “think outside of the box”)