Tag Archives: house size

Argument: growing income inequality reflected in “unseemly” larger houses

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In his new book, Charles Murray (not a sociologist) apparently makes the case that the “unseemly” big houses in the American suburbs today reflect growing levels of income inequality:

He begins by noting that the distribution of income was far more compressed in 1963 than it is today. Back then, the median family income of professionals and managerial occupations was only about $62,000 p.a. in today’s dollars. Less than 1% of American families in 1963 had incomes higher than $200,000 p.a. and only 8% had household incomes higher than $100,000 p.a. (again, all figures in today’s dollars).

The housing of the time reflected the same degree of compression. Even the elite didn’t usually live in what we think of today as a mansion. He recommends viewing an episode of Mad Men to see the sort of house – remarkably modest by today’s standards – that the Drapers live in. That, he says, is “the kind of house that the creative director of a major New York advertising agency might well have lived in”.

In 1963, great mansions were something most Americans saw in the movies, not in person. Only the richest suburbs of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles had entire neighborhoods consisting of mansions.

The nature of the change since then can be seen by driving around suburban neighborhoods where the affluent of the 1960s lived, such as Chevy Chase, Maryland; Belmont, Massachusetts; or Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Most of the housing stock remaining from that era looks nothing like the 15,000- and 20,000-square-foot homes built in affluent suburbs over the last few decades. No reproductions of French châteaux. No tennis courts. No three-story cathedral ceilings.

Interesting argument. I wonder if some other factors might also be at play here.

(1) Perhaps people today are more willing to spend their wealth on impressive houses. This could be the case if homes have become more important markers of status since the 1960s.

(2) Perhaps home builders weren’t building these types of homes on a large enough scale for more wealthy Americans to access them. The early 1960s is not that far removed from the under 1,000 square feet Levittown houses and the big builders (as opposed to more local or regional builders) were just taking off. In other words, there was no Toll Brothers yet. Additionally, you need lenders who would be willing to service more mortgages for bigger houses.

(3) Overall, all American homes increased in size over this time period. The average square footage of a new home was 1,660 square feet in 1973 and peaked at 2,521 square feet in 2007. It could be true that the top 10 or 20% of houses have really increased in size but on the whole, all new homes have gotten bigger.

(4) Another factor that might be overlooked here is that the wealthy in the 1960s tended to live with other wealthy people in suburbs or subdivisions and this is likely still the case today. Sure, Don Draper might have had a smaller home but Draper still lived with white-collar professionals. Even if their house sizes have really ballooned, one issue is that the wealthy still live apart from other Americans. Perhaps we should be more concerned with residential segregation than just the size of homes.

Sierra Club Green Home member suggests 1,000 per person in future homes

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If McMansions are too big, and a lot of critics would say this is the case, it is less clear about how much space people actually need or should be allotted. Here is a suggestion from the director of sustainability of Sierra Club Green Home:

Indeed, magazines like DWELL, and websites such as Inhabitat.com — both leaders of architectural style and design – showcase smaller homes for families of up to four members. Usually these are in the 1,000 to 3,000 square foot range, built with fully sustainable materials and state-of-the-art energy efficient HVAC systems. Upon considering this trend versus the longer-standing bigger is better, Sierra Club Green Home.com proposes a new industry standard that balances our longtime desire for lots of space with the current and future need to downsize: one thousand square feet per inhabitant, max. So, a family of four would get up to 4,000 square feet, a childless couple would have 2,000 feet or less, and so on. Sorry, pets don’t count as people (although my personal bias is that having a large dog in a very small space is not healthy for the animal).

No doubt hardcore environmentalists will think this plan is too liberal, but I believe we have to start somewhere and we have to be realistic about the ability to change long-standing philosophies overnight. Perhaps ultimately downsizing should mean 750 or even 500 square feet per inhabitant? For now, however, in this first incantation, I think the 1,000 feet per person proposed by Sierra Club Green Home makes sense.

We then need to hear why this figure, 1,000 square feet per person, is correct or defensible. Just because people are designing homes containing 2-3,000 square feet does not mean that is the way it has to be. This is still a lot of space by the world’s standards as the average new American home in 2010 was 2,392 square feet. I’m sure we could get some input from environmental psychologists about how much space Americans need to feel comfortable at home while sociologists and others could provide insights into how Americans and others interact within houses.

This reminds me of what I have read about the design of homes in the 1700s and 1800s which was influenced by the idea that individual members of the household needed their own spaces so houses were carved into more rooms as opposed to having bigger communal spaces. The recent trend is back toward more open, “great room” spaces but these homes likely also include the private spaces (remember the articles about “mom caves” from a while back? See here and here) that people are used to. So if people should live with 1,000 square feet per person or less, what gets cut from the average home?

National Association of Home Builders survey on homes in 2015: smaller, more green

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The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) recently published findings of a survey about what “builders, designers, architects, manufacturers, and marketing specialists” think homes will be like in 2015. Two results from this survey were reported elsewhere:

The McMansions of the boom era are quickly losing their style.The NAHB reports that the builders they “surveyed expect homes to average 2,152 square feet in 2015, 10 percent smaller than the average size of single-family homes started in the first three quarters of 2010. To save on square footage, the living room is high on the endangered list – 52 percent of builders expect it to be merged with other spaces in the home by 2015 and 30 percent said it will vanish entirely.”

Also a heavy influence on the housing front are green and eco-friendly features. The NAHB reports that “in addition to floor plan changes, 68 percent of builders surveyed say that homes in 2015 will also include more green features and technology, including low-E windows; engineered wood beams, joists or tresses; water-efficient features such as dual-flush toilets or low-flow faucets; and an Energy Star rating for the whole house.”

These two changes by 2015 were the leaders by far: 74% said smaller single-family homes were most probable or probable and 68% said it was most probable or probable that “green” features would increase in homes. This news is not too surprising: the square footage of the average new American home dropped recently and more eco-friendly homes are on the way (read about LEED certified homes here). What is interesting is that these conclusions are from members of the home building industry who likely are responding to what they think the market desires.

(Going back to the original NAHB report, something else caught my eye. Here is a short description of the methodology behind this survey:

NAHB’s The New Home in 2015 survey was sent electronically to 3,019 builders, designers, architects, manufacturers, and marketing specialists. The sample was stratified by region of the country (to be proportional to housing starts in each of the four Census regions) and, among builders, by their number of units started.

A total of 238 responses were received, of which 30 percent came from single-family builders, 19 percent from architects, 26 percent from designers, 7 percent from manufacturers, and 18 percent from “other” building industry professionals.

On one hand, the stratification of the survey is good to try to get results proportional to builders and areas of the country where building starts are taking place. On the other hand, the response rate to this electronic survey is 7.9%. With such a low response rate, how do we know that these findings are representative of the home building industry at large?)

Measuring the popularity of tiny houses

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I enjoy looking at pictures of tiny houses, those abodes with around 100 square feet. Perhaps it has something to do with my interest in home designs or my liking of cozy places or thinking about how Americans are finding alternatives to buying large homes.

But it is difficult to get a handle on exactly how many people like these houses or actually decide to buy them. One thing is sure: it is a small number of people. But this story suggests the number of people interested is on the rise:

Tumbleweed’s business has grown significantly since the housing crisis began, Shafer said. He now sells about 50 blueprints, which cost $400 to $1,000 each, a year, up from 10 five years ago. The eight workshops he teaches around the country each year attract 40 participants on average, he said…

Since the housing crisis and recession began, interest in tiny homes has grown dramatically among young people and retiring Baby Boomers, said Kent Griswold, who runs the Tiny House Blog, which attracts 5,000 to 7,000 visitors a day…

Gregory Johnson, who co-founded the Small House Society with Shafer, said the online community now has about 1,800 subscribers, up from about 300 five years ago. Most of them live in their small houses full-time and swap tips on living simple and small.

Johnson, 46, who works as a computer consultant at the University of Iowa, said dozens of companies specializing small houses have popped up around the country over the past few years…

He said his small houses, which sell for $20,000 to $50,000, are much cheaper than building a home addition and can be resold when the extra space is no longer needed. His company has sold 16 houses this year and aims to sell 20 next year.

These numbers are small – and anecdotal. Even with this rise in popularity, there are still few people interested in selling or buying tiny houses. Are there enough people here to declare that there is a “tiny house movement”? Why not include figures about how many people have joined Facebook groups having to do with tiny houses?

While the popularity of these homes might be indicative that more Americans are interesting in downsizing, the better figure to look at is the average size of the new American single-family home. Taking into account national data, this figure dropped this year and suggests that houses across the country are becoming slightly smaller (or at least reversing the trend of always getting bigger).