Category Archives: McMansions

Baby Boomers want to downsize from McMansions but still want the amenities

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Even if more people are interested in smaller houses, will they be willing to forgo the amenities of larger houses? This article suggests the Baby Boomers going to Florida want to go smaller but still want features:

The baby boomers who invented the “McMansion” now say they want to scale down, while still having everything just so. For boomers beginning to trickle into Florida, this means medium-size, maintenance-free retirement homes that still feel spacious, especially when it comes to storing all their stuff.

Builders who study what this generation wants have come up with innovations like “snore rooms” to preserve bedtime peace and “technology centers” to keep them connected. Behind a yen for such marketing frills is a solid demand for costly amenities: spas, fitness centers and dedicated golf cart paths to nearby shopping…

This generation, famous for saying one thing and doing another, promises to keep it up as its members age. Boomers say they intend to downsize, but appear to change their minds once they see what their dollars will buy in a post-recession Florida…

Inside, the standard villa layout has been refined to boost the coolness factor boomers crave. Generous windows, some of them bays and bump-outs, flood the rooms with natural light. Tiny foyers feature the elegant architectural detail of a stately manor, and lead immediately into wide, off-center angles of open-planned space. Pocket doors allow one- or two-bedroom guest suites to close off from the rest of the living area, so grandchildren can nap or play.

Custom options include a cocktail pool, or “spool” — bigger than a spa, smaller than a pool — and a shared office with his-and-her workspaces for boomer couples telecommuting from home.

Several factors are at play here:

1. Housing is relatively cheap in Florida, particularly if retirees are coming from New York, Washington, Boston, and to a lesser extent, Chicago. Perhaps these retirees can’t resist getting the “best deal” when they realize they have the money to buy a little more?

2. What people expect in retirement. It sounds like these retirees expect a certain standard of living when they move to Florida. If they had fewer choices or less money, what would they ask for? Overall, these retirees have the money and the wherewithal to pick up and leave for Florida.

3. This is big business. Companies like Dell Webb need retirees to buy their homes so they are going to offer what people want.

In these cases, it sounds like buying less (particularly in square footage) doesn’t necessarily mean buying less.

Recent uptick in sales of McMansions?

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Here is an argument that new home sales of recent months might be driven in part by larger homes, sometimes known as McMansions:

Data released on Wednesday shows that sales of newly built homes rose 3.3% in April from a month prior and 9.9% from a year ago. While the figures do not disclose the size of these new homes, home builders credited the McMansion side of the spectrum. That’s a reversal from recent trends: During the recession the size of homes got smaller, shrinking 3.4% to 2,382 square feet, according to the US Census. But last year that size jumped 5.2% to 2,505 – the largest in at least four years. In many regions of the country, homes are even larger.

Home builders say the trend toward larger new homes picked up more this year. Michael Villane, president of Lead Dog Builders, a custom home builder in Rumson, N.J., says he’s currently building homes with sticker prices of $1.5 to $4 million, up from the $1.3  to $1.5 million his clients were commissioning a year ago. While the average size of homes in the region is 3,500 to 5,500 square feet, he says the orders he’s received this year are for 7,000 plus-square feet homes. Though there’s no official definition of the word, many define McMansions as new homes larger than 3,000 square feet.

In some cases, home builders are enlarging homes even if clients don’t ask for it. Michael Dubb, CEO and president of The Beechwood Organization, a New York-based home building company, says his firm is building houses with larger kitchens, higher ceilings, and overall more spacious rooms in an attempt to appeal to buyers who might be on the fence about buying a new home. By building bigger without raising the price, he says, the company is hoping to increase its sales. (He says they’re not downgrading quality, but rather cutting into their profits in order to make more sales.)…

Requests for large new homes come at a challenging time for the overall new home market. New home sales hit a 51-year low of 307,000 last year, according to the NAHB. That figure is expected to jump 18% this year, but it would still be way off its peak of 1.3 million homes in 2005.

If I had to guess at what is behind this, here is what I would say: there is a bifurcation in the current housing market. On one hand, you have a large group of potential homebuyers who are looking for smaller homes. One recent book I reviewed calls this the “demographic inversion” as young adults and retiring Baby Boomers look to downsize and purchase in denser areas. Proponents of these trends argue that the Americans of the future are looking for a different kind of homeowning experience in the future. On the other hand, you still have a decent number of wealthy homebuyers who are now moving out of a hibernation stage brought on the economic/housing crisis several years ago. They are looking to buy homes similar to what they would have bought ten years ago but now feel financially stable enough to pursue this.

The article doesn’t mention this but I wonder if this is also at play: new home sales are at the lowest stage in 51 years so this new push for larger homes among the wealthy is really raising the average in a way that we haven’t seen in the past. When those at the lower economic spectrum get back into buying homes (though some would argue that they won’t – perhaps we’re moving to a rental society), the average figures for the whole country might come down or stabilize a bit.

McMansions are not retirement vehicles

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In a discussion of the number of Americans approaching retirement age, one economist briefly mentions one issue: the expectation some retirees had that their homes would be retirement vehicles may be misguided.

“The fact of the matter is that this aging-but-not-yet-aged segment of the baby boomer class can’t afford to retire,” said David A. Rosenberg, the chief economist of Gluskin Sheff, a Canadian firm, noting that overall household net worth was 15 percent lower than at the prerecession peak. “Dreams of the 5,000-square-foot McMansion being a viable retirement asset have morphed into nightmares of a deflationary ball and chain.”

This is indicative of a larger shift: with the ongoing housing crisis, homeowners can’t expect to cash out their homes in the same way they might have in the late 1990s and early 2000s. McMansions are emblematic of people taking out large mortgages and then having difficulty in paying off their mortgages or moving (“downshifting”) to a cheaper residence because of the reduced value of their homes. Of course, this shift moves housing back to its historic role as a dwelling but not necessarily as a golden nest-egg for retirees.

I would be interested in knowing at which age people tend to purchase McMansions or other large homes. For example, buying a McMansion in one’s 50s might not be the best idea if someone wants to retire at 65. If a homeowner is willing to live in a home for a longer period of time, say more than 10-15 years, then such a purchase might not be as unreasonable as the homeowner can pay off more of their mortgage. Living in a home long-term may not be possible for everyone given changing job circumstances as well as the general mobile nature of American society but there are ways to help ensure one could make more money off of selling a large home.

McMansions are so big you need staging to define the rooms for potential buyers

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A New York firm talks about why staging is needed in McMansions:

Staging is a concept that started on the West Coast, and was virtually unknown when Guest and Kramer started introducing it to real estate brokers 12 years ago.

“The advantage is huge,” says Guest. “People walk in to these McMansions. There are so many rooms they don’t know which one is used for what. Is this the family room? Parlor? Great room? We define it. It lets them see that they could live there.”

“We would try to explain to the real estate brokers,” says Kramer, “giving them figures and excerpts from articles in San Francisco and London. It was a difficult idea to sell to a seller.”…

But since then, times have changed. From the real estate boom to the recession that followed, house staging has continued to grow.

“The worst year for everyone was out best year ever,” says Kramer. She acknowledges that perhaps, as it gets harder to sell a house, people are willing to put a little more effort into the process. In addition, people have gotten more involved in the process.

McMansions are so large that people don’t know what to do with the space! Why not get prospective homebuyers maps or at least architectural plans in order to make it through the house! On one hand, this seems to reinforce some stereotypes about McMansions: they have a lot of unnecessary space and Americans, for some reason, really like to have that kind of space. I can imagine Sarah Susanka would have a good time talking about why people should go with smaller homes rather than have to have their spaces defined for them.

On the other hand, staging seems to be pretty common today across housing types. It can be difficult for homebuyers to envision what a space can become without a little help. What does it cost to stage the typical McMansion (let’s say between 3,500 and 6,000 square feet) these days? And what staging touches in McMansions work the best for selling the house?

When a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Wilmette is threatened by McMansions

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McMansions don’t only threaten the unspoiled fields of America; they also threaten houses designed by notable architects like Frank Lloyd Wright.

A dollar can’t buy you much these days. But for Joseph Catrambone, a contractor, real estate manager, and self-proclaimed architecture buff living in Oak Brook, Illinois, one dollar secured him a 594-square-foot historic Prairie Style cottage, churned out by Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio in its 1920 heydays. The only caveat: He has about two weeks to devise a plan and acquire the permits to dismantle and remove the building from its present location. “I wake up in the morning thinking how crazy I am,” Catrambone told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s exciting and crazy all at the same time.”

Exciting, crazy, and heroic. Catrambone’s plan to relocate the cottage from its original site has saved one of two endangered Frank Lloyd Wright-connected buildings in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette from imminent destruction. The cottage, which currently sits on 1320 Isabella Street, was designed by Austrian-born architect Rudolph Schindler, who was working in Wright’s studio at the time, propagating the American architect’s patented style before striking out on his own as a prominent modernist architect with an entire platform frame system attributed to his name (the Schindler Frame)…

As soon as talks of demolition began, alarm bells went off. Preservationists swiftly entered the scene, tracing the two buildings back to Schindler, Van Bergen, and Wright and meticulously unearthing original blueprints that would qualify the works as Wright creations. While any Wright association is usually enough to earn a reprieve for buildings facing ruin, Wilmette, unlike Chicago, does not have a landmark ordinance. Like the recently razed Palos Verdes beach house built by Lloyd Wright, Wright’s son, the Isabella Street houses are sitting on prime real estate for aspiring McMansion owners.

Fending off the stereotype of the big, bad developer, Hausen opened the door to the Chicago-based Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. Together, they arrived at an agreement, which placed the Van Bergen-designed house on the market for four months starting on May 1 at a listing of $599,000. The Conservancy is taking careful measures to monitor potential buyers, determined to find a future owner who will preserve the existing residence.

This sounds like a decent compromise: the homes are saved (though moved) and property owners and builders can utilize the prime property.

I’m sure there are some fascinating stories out there about preservation battles over structures like these. Why weren’t these homes given landmark status? Why do some towns move to preserve Frank Lloyd Wright homes and others do not? How much of a Frank Lloyd Wright home does a structure have to be to be worth saving – this home simply came out of his workshop.

Also, if an important building is saved but moved, is it still just as important?

Greenwashing Cadillacs and McMansions

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A review of the 2012 Cadillac Escalade compares the greenwashing of the Escalade and McMansions:

And of course, the Escalade is not a paragon of fuel efficiency, but you knew that. Still, 13 mpg city and 20 mpg highway is pretty grim. Much better mileage is available, however, in the form of the Escalade Hybrid. It’s easy to view that car as a cynical bit of greenwashing (sort of like putting bamboo floors in your McMansion), but the Hybrid’s EPA ratings of 20/23 mpg put it on a par with much smaller vehicles — the city rating particularly.

Two thoughts:

1. I’ve asked repeatedly whether McMansions could be considered green. SUVs have similar issues: how many MPG would they need to no longer be considered with derision by critics?

2. The comparison between McMansions and SUVs is not unusual. Here is a finding from my recently published paper on the meaning of the term McMansion: out of the 637 articles that mentioned McMansions in the New York Times between 1/1/00 and 12/31/09, at least 33 compared McMansions and SUVs. Both are often cited as exemplars of excessive consumption (using resources, debt, sprawl, etc.) and many critics would love to leave the two objects to a foregone past.

Australian architect argues banks are pushing him to design McMansions

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One Australian architect argues that he doesn’t want to build McMansions but banks are pushing him to do so:

CANBERRA’S appetite for McMansions may have lessened but architects are complaining that it is now the banks – not the clients – who are pushing them for extra more bricks and mortar.

President of the ACT chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects Tony Trobe said he had been effectively forced to change designs to give clients extra bedrooms they did not want or need, just so they could get finance from their banks for the build.

”The banks are saying ‘no’ because they think it’s not as easy to sell a stylish two bedroom house as is to sell a three bedroom house with a garage,” he said…

Australian Bankers’ Association chief executive officer Steven Munchenberg said there was no hard and fast rule about needing at least three bedrooms.

”Nobody in the industry is saying ‘no more two bedrooms’ but the banks will take into account the re-salability of the home,” he said.

This sounds like an interesting conundrum: the architect wants a certain design but the bank wants to make sure the home can be sold down the road. Having three bedrooms makes the home more attractive to families and others who might extra space (a guest room, an office, etc.). Could the banks simply be hedging their bets here, meaning they want to ensure they aren’t stuck with an underwater mortgage or foreclosure down the road?

I do have one question: having three bedrooms in a home automatically makes it a McMansion? Having three bedrooms sounds pretty normal to me…

McMansions are symbols of “the excess of greed”

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An interesting way the term McMansion is sometimes used is to see such houses as symbols for some larger issue in our culture. This usage is illustrated in a documentary to be shown next week in Vancouver:

Vancouver’s treasury of modern architecture is the subject of Coast Modern, by Michael Bernard and Gavin Froome (May 8, 7 p.m., Vancity Theatre).

“Coast Modern is an exceptionally beautiful film,” says Woodend. “I have a bit of a yen for modernist architecture, just because it’s so exquisite, and it’s one of those films [that takes] house porn on a whole new level.

“Although, to give it credit, it looks at architecture as a manifestation of social values. [It has] Douglas Coupland weighing in on McMansions, and how they’re sort of this travesty, not just in architectural terms, but as an embodiment of cultural and social values, the excess of greed that has come out of the last 10 years and shown up in brick and mortar.

“In that regard it’s pretty thoughtful, it really uses architecture as a means to talk about culture.”

From this point of view, houses are not just things to be purchased by individual buyers. Rather, homes and their architecture represent broader trends in society. McMansions can then be viewed as symbols of excess, products of an era where people consumed more than they needed with impunity. Presumably smaller homes indicate (whether they are tiny or “not-so-big“) fighting back against this culture of excess.

Of course, labeling a home as a McMansion then does the job of pointing out the excess. If you live in such a home that acquires this label, do you try to respond that the home really isn’t that excessive? Or perhaps that it is green enough (perhaps a tactic of celebrities)?

My recent work on McMansions is discussed in The Atlantic Cities

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Read this story on The Atlantic Cities to get a summary of my recent publication on McMansions. While the article in the Journal of Urban History is not yet in print, it is available online. Here is the abstract:

The single-family home is a critical part of the American Dream, and there has been a long conversation about what houses mean and symbolize. As American homes have grown larger, some of these newer homes have been called McMansions. This study examines the use of this term in the New York Times and Dallas Morning News between 2000 and 2009 and shows that McMansion is a complex term with four distinct meanings: a large house, a relatively large house, a home flawed in architecture or design, and a symbol for more complex issues including sprawl and excessive consumption. The author argues that the usage and meaning of the term differs by metropolitan context, suggesting there may not be a singular national process of “mansionization,” and provides three suggestions for the future study of McMansions.

I’ve posted a lot about McMansions on this blog and many of these thoughts are based on this analysis.

Movie line: “Victims live in McMansions. You live in a bungalow.”

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A review of the new movie Detention includes an interesting  bit of dialogue spoken to a character who has just survived an encounter with a horror movie villain:

Victims live in McMansions. You live in a bungalow.

Since I don’t watch horror films or a lot of ultra-violent movies, I wasn’t aware that victims are often McMansion dwellers. If this is true: is this simply tied to the idea that the privileged/wealthy/popular/snobby types tend to live in such houses (meaning the setting is not the main point of the scene) or is it a larger commentary about consumption and poor-quality yet large tract housing?