While some have suggested McMansions can be renovated for multi-family housing, one Australian observer suggests this has already happened to some degree:

“We’re seeing a new efficiency or a new austerity where people are thinking a lot more about costs such as rising energy bills,” he says.

“And it’s the return to the multi-generational household where you’ve got the parents, their adult children living at home, sometimes with their own little ones.”

McCrindle says as a result there is a question mark hanging over already established large properties.

“What’s going to happen to the McMansion? Are they going to be in demand, or are they going to drop in value?” he says.

“I think that problem is already being sorted out because those McMansions are becoming multi-generational. Some downstairs rooms are being turned into granny flats, kitchenettes are being added and whole bedrooms are being turned into study rooms or home offices. For the future, it will be about building housing stock that is flexible and will adapt to our needs.”

Perhaps the children of the “accordion family” can use this as a rallying cry: “Our living at home helps mitigate the aesthetic, environmental, and financial disasters are parents made by purchasing a McMansion.”

It would be interesting to talk to McMansion owners and see if one of the reasons they purchased the home was for the possibility that adult family members might be able to live there. If so, perhaps the McMansion purchase isn’t completely misguided as critics would suggest?