Tag Archives: McMansions

“New McMansions and Disappearing Jobs: A Tale of Two Rural Americas”

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Here is a brief summary of two trends in rural America: growing exurbs (which can include McMansions) yet a decline in jobs.

On the positive side of rural, Teresa Wiltz writes for Stateline, the very useful news and analysis source of the Pew Charitable Trusts, that “new census data show that for the first time since 2010, the outermost suburban counties are growing faster than urban counties and close-in suburbs.” The demographic change that Wiltz describes is the increase of 146,000 in new exurban residents attributable to domestic migration. The “vibe” of these exurbs, she writes, “is decidedly rural Americana.”

Why are the exurbs growing? Wiltz cites multiple potential reasons for this turnaround, including people moving to the exurbs for jobs (she cites Joel Kotkin, the well-known author, who believes that suburbanization is the likely route to growth around the world, to point out that “the vast majority of jobs aren’t in the cities”) and for “bigger and more affordable homes in a more wide-open space.”…

Some of the exurban growth might be attributable to the economic revival, but Bill Bishop reports in the Daily Yonder that, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, job growth in rural America stopped pretty abruptly in 2014. Between January 2014 and January 2015, rural counties lost 331,000 jobs while metropolitan counties gained 3.1 million jobs. Job losses almost always correlate with workforce and population losses; the rural workforce dropped 557,000 during 2014, which almost assuredly means that rural counties lost population as well.

It may be that these contrasting stories describe an in-migration by people who can choose to live wherever they want and an outmigration of people who have to go where there are jobs. Those in-migrants pose tough challenges for rural areas. Wiltz, for example, mentions in her piece seeing McMansions, farmhouses, mobile homes, and designer outlet stores together in the exurban area 40 miles north of Atlanta. That kind of mix of land uses can constitute a planner’s nightmare and a challenging issue for citizens groups trying to determine how residential development and open space and farmland preservation should be balanced.

There are a few confounding issues at play here:

1. This article mixes the ideas of exurbs and rural areas. The exurbs are between suburbs and the rural areas but what exactly does this mean? It is hard to know. Is 40 miles from Atlanta the suburbs or a rural area or exurbs? Exurbs often means the suburban fringe.

2. Having a rural “vibe” is also a vague idea. I assume this means big lots and smaller communities. But, a good number of Americans say they would prefer to live in “small towns” and these exurban areas may offer just that.

3. If the last paragraph is correct, the people building and/or buying McMansions in the exurbs are the same people driving the higher ends of the housing market in suburbs and cities. As the bottom end of the housing market continues to struggle, those with money can afford to move further out from the city and into big homes.

Not quite a McMansion but “bigger than they should be for the lots” and “faintly ridiculous”

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I applaud this effort to not label every home you dislike a McMansion but this discussion of zoning in New Jersey suggests there is not a readily accessible term for disliked homes smaller than McMansions:

An association does run the new neighborhood, but the houses are not small. While they may not qualify as actual McMansions, they are bigger than they should be for the lots they are on and look faintly ridiculous. The project isn’t finished. Let’s see how well landscaping mitigates the problem…

Much of the objection is aesthetic. The Park Avenue and Whippany Road intersection is the gateway to Hanover Township coming west from Morristown and visitors should not be presented with an eyesore as their first impression of the township, residents say.

While McMansions are assumed to be larger than normal, what are the negative terms for smaller than normal homes? For homes with less square footage, the terms tend to refer to specific kinds of homes but without necessarily carrying the same connotations as McMansions. Condos. Townhomes. Starter homes. Split levels. Tiny houses. Perhaps the closest one is “double-wide” or “trailer home” but these are less common in many areas and/or are restricted to specific clusters or more rural areas.

At the same time, the small size of a new home or set of smaller units doesn’t necessarily mean that the size and design escapes scrutiny. The homes here are considered an “eyesore.” Elsewhere, others argue that multi-family units or smaller homes compared to everyone else may just actually lower property values through offering cheaper housing units or destroying the community’s character.

Temporary McMansion control in 20 LA neighborhoods

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The Los Angeles City Council recently passed an ordinance limiting the construction of large homes in a number of Los Angeles neighborhoods:

The City Council unanimously passed the Neighborhood Conservation Interim Control Ordinance, which put a two-year ban on the size of new, single-family dwellings in some neighborhoods.

The ordinance temporarily limits the size of single-family dwellings in 15 neighborhoods: Valley Village, South Hollywood, La Brea Hancock Neighborhood, The Oaks of Los Feliz, Miracle Mile, Larchmont Heights, Lower Council District Five, Beverlywood, Inner Council District Five, Fairfax Area, Bel Air, Faircrest Heights Neighborhood, Kentwood, Mar Vista/East Venice and Old Granada Hills.

The law also puts a temporary moratorium on the issuance of building and demolition permits in five proposed Historic Preservation Overlay Zones: Sunset Square, Carthay Square, Holmby-Westwood, Oxford Square and El Sereno-Berkshire Craftsman District…

Los Angeles city planners are crafting new zoning codes for development in the city. Updated regulations are expected to be released in about 18 months.

The key in this ongoing battle is what the updated regulations look like. At the moment, this ordinance slows down large teardown houses in certain neighborhoods. Yet, it will still be difficult to balance property rights versus the wishes of the neighborhood groups in a few years.

Two other possible side effects:

1. I wonder if this will lead to teardowns and McMansions in neighborhoods outside these boundaries. While these neighborhoods are off-limits to some degree, the demand for housing doesn’t disappear.

2. What will happen to both the population and character of these protected neighborhoods in the next few years? Will there be population increases or decreases? Will builders and developers take their projects elsewhere? Will these places be held up as paragons of citizens rallying together to save something?

If you want a few visuals of the homes that cannot be built in the next few years, check out these five recently constructed homes at Curbed LA.

Some band had to eventually take the name “Mcmansions”

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If you can play lead guitar, you can join the band with the great name “Mcmansions.”

Mcmansions seek lead guitarist (Marietta Ga.)

We are primarily an original band based out of Marietta,Ga. We sing about Love, Loss, sadness, insanity and yes redemption. all of us are over the age of 40 and prefer the same.We are acoustic guitarists/lead singer,bass/backup vocals, and drums. We enjoy live performance and recording,mostly on weekends.We are actively seeking you electric guitarist to make our music even better. We all have obligations but nonetheless we live to write sing and play and will quit when we are dead. Our arrangements are not difficult we just need an energetic new friend to fill in all the blanks with stylistic embellishments to whip the band up into a frenzy of rock n roll bliss.

And the style or ethos of the band?

We are proudly playing a distinct original blend of lightly salted alternative Rock/Americana self styled tunage The music speaks for itself We have a 60s garage sound in our music that draws from the Rock, soul, pop ,punk,country and gospel that we have all come to love Actually we have a lost Identity covered with kudzu, rust and condemned asbestos habitations with chipped lead paint…

Given the criticism the McMansion has taken in the last 15 years, there is a lot of sadness and insanity to explore here with this particular band name. However, I’m not sure audiences would be ready for love and redemption stories regarding McMansions…

Two other thoughts:

1. Even with their many problems of the suburbs according to critics (including a lack of community and poor design), there are a good number of music artists who have emerged from this social space in last half century. Perhaps it provides teenagers lots of time, space, and social connections for putting together a group? Perhaps it is because people in the suburbs get some decent music training as kids or have access to instruments and time? Perhaps suburban ills push people toward music as a way to escape?

2. McMansions may not be appealing to some but they offer a lot of space for music equipment and practice space. Imagine how much sound it takes to fill that two-story great room. Or the way that the loud noise of a rock band might just rattle the poorly constructed abode.

Dilemma: replace older housing with “cheesy apartment complexes” or McMansions?

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If older housing is going to be torn down, would you prefer it be replaced with apartment buildings or McMansions?

McMansions are going up one after another in my neighborhood on the Burbank hillside. Unattractive boxy additions are being built, leaving little yard space, and houses are being torn down to make way for bigger two-story barns. The reason for this may be because of the need for more room to accommodate today’s lifestyle — computers, media rooms, etc. It does spoil the whole appearance of the neighborhood. However, what’s worse it that ever since the ’60s,charming old cottages have been razed to make way for cheesy apartment complexes. Older apartment buildings with space and courtyards have been replaced by bigger apartment blocks with no outdoor areas. Maybe McMansions are the lesser of two evils.

Of course, these aren’t the only options available in many places. Yet, if land is expensive, McMansions and apartments could be appealing to builders and developers: the first can maximize square footage and have a higher selling price while the second increases the number of housing units (which could also help provide more housing in places that struggle with higher housing values).

If I had to guess, more Americans would choose to live next to a McMansion than an apartment complex. McMansions receive a lot of criticism, particularly in older neighborhoods where the new homes don’t fit the character or architecture. Yet, apartment complexes may be disliked even more by many suburbanites, even in the abstract, let alone next door or down the block. Apartments are perceived to attract different kinds of residents – lower class, different racial and ethnic groups, more prone to crime, more transient, less invested in their housing unit and the community – compared to suburban single-family homeowners.

Thinking more broadly, what housing options might be disliked more than apartments? Maybe trailer parks. Or group homes. Or public housing, whether in larger concentrations or scattered-site.

Don’t be the Realtor that supports McMansions

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In the arguments against McMansions and mansionization, even real estate agents can get caught up in the issue:

Of course, Reni Rose was not the only Arcadia dwelling Realtor to sign a petition designed to promote predatory McMansionization in the Arcadia Highlands. Here are the others:

Song Liem    1141 Oakwood Dr.
Jeffrey Bowen  1919 Wilson Ave.
Darlene Bowen  1919 Wilson Ave.
Ash Rizk   1204 Oakwood Dr.
Nivine Rizk  1204 Oakwood Dr.
Mark Cheng  1741  Oakwood Ave.
Alan Black  238 Hillgreen Place
Ruth Black  238 Hillgreen Place

You might want to consider their support for the mansionization of the Arcadia Highlands when looking for your next Realtor. We have scans of their petition signatures as well. If you would like copies for your own files pop me an email and I’ll send them your way…

The bad news here is that the Henry A. Darling home (we will persist in calling it that despite the sanitized language used in the latest listing), is once agains in the hands of a real estate agent who obviously does not have a problem with McMansions.

I don’t know how often those in real estate are asked about their stances toward particular properties or planned developments. Would it be good for business to publicly support one side or another? It might if there is a large business base at play but I feel like I don’t often see such public statements. Instead, wouldn’t real estate agents want to be “neutral” toward clients as any business is good business? Getting too involved in local politics could end up being problematic if the tide turns or if it limits future business opportunities. So, perhaps these realtors shouldn’t have signed a public petition at all, even if they felt it was promoting the rights of property owners which could be perceived as good for business.

This is another example of how politicized McMansions can be. Discussions don’t just involve local policymakers who could place restrictions on teardowns or new developments but can also come to pit neighbors against each other as well as involve local businesspeople.

The declining “McMansion to Multi-Millionaire ratio”

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One analysis looks at the popularity of McMansions (amidst articles claiming they have returned) via a ratio of McMansions to multi-millionaires in the United States:

We can get a good contemporaneous gauge of the popularity of McMansions by dividing the number of new 4,000 plus square foot homes sold by the number of households with a net worth of $5 million or more: call it the McMansion/Multi-Millionaire ratio. (There’s no universally accepted definition of McMansion, but since the Census Bureau reports the number of newly completed single-family homes of 4,000 square feet or larger, most researchers take this as a proxy for these over-sized homes.)

The McMansion to Multi-Millionaire ratio started at about 12.5 in 2001 (the oldest year in the current Census home size series)—meaning that the market built 12 new 4,000 square foot-plus homes for every 1,000 households with a net worth of $5 million or more. The ratio fluctuated over the following few years, and was at 12.0 in 2006—the height of the housing bubble. The ratio declined sharply thereafter as housing and financial markets crashed.

McMansiontoMultiMillionaireRatioEven though the number of high-net-worth households has been increasing briskly in recent years (it’s now at a new high), the rebound in McMansions has been tepid (still down 59 percent from the peak, as noted earlier). The result is that the McMansion/Multi-Millionaire ratio is still at 4.5–very near its lowest point. Relative to the number of high-net-worth households, we’re building only about a third as many McMansions as we did 5 or 10 years ago. These data suggest that even among the top one or two percent, there’s a much-reduced interest in super-large houses.

An interesting measure that tries to put together how many wealthy people there are (the ones who can build and purchase McMansions) with how many new large homes were constructed (with the rough proxy of square footage – not all homes over 4,000 square feet would be considered McMansions). The conclusion is interesting: the number of McMansions being built today is quite lower than the peak ten years ago or so. So, when journalists write that the McMansion is back (usually with a negative tone – our wild spending and consumeristic days of the early 2000s are set to return!), it is not at the same scale as we are still in the middle of a depressed housing market.

Expanding beyond making furniture for McMansions

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Ashley Furniture has its sights on global markets as it moves past McMansion furniture:

His son, Todd Wanek, the company’s chief executive, says simply: “We want to grow in the 7% to 10% range every single year”—or more than twice the rate of U.S. furniture-industry sales growth in recent years.

Those ambitions are taking the Waneks outside their comfort zone of making furniture styled for American McMansions. Ashley is now trying to sell furniture in Asia, where it is making a much bigger bet than its U.S.-based rivals.

For example, a local partner of Ethan Allen has opened 75 retail outlets in China to showcase upscale products. Ashley is aiming for 1,000 stores in Asia in 10 years, up from its current total of 35. The company also is opening stores in the Middle East and Central America, among other places, partly to reduce its reliance on any one market.

No other U.S. furniture maker has tried to expand internationally on the scale planned by Ashley, and it hasn’t been easy. On a recent Sunday, only a couple dozen customers were browsing at Ashley’s 35,000-square-foot store on four levels in Shanghai’s Zhong Shan Park neighborhood.

Two thoughts:

1. This hints at the larger economic impact of McMansions. While people may focus on the real estate and development aspects (land, constructing homes), there are numerous other goods associated with McMansions from certain kinds of vehicles (the ubiquitous SUVs) to furniture to fill all of those rooms. If real estate has slowed down in the United States in recent years, then such companies will need to change their strategies.

2. This also highlights globalization in one particular industry. Ashley first had to figure out in the 1980s how to compete against global manufacturers and now is looking to capitalize on growing markets elsewhere (even as the American market shows its limits). But, it isn’t just about selling furniture; such furniture requires higher incomes, more middle-class tastes in other countries, and homes where this furniture will fit right in. In other words, this furniture is just a part of exporting the American middle-class dream where one can walk among rows and rows of furniture and easily plunk down some money (or access credit) or update one’s home furnishings.

You’ve been warned (again): McMansions are back!

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Newer American homes are bigger than ever:

New American homes were bigger than ever last year, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. After a few years of shrinkage in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the median square footage of newly-built homes last year tipped the scales at over 2,400 square feet. That’s nearly 1,000 square feet larger than the median home built in 1992. The death of the McMansion has been greatly exaggerated…

There are any number of explanations for this trend. Young first-time buyers, who are less inclined to buy big suburban houses, are largely sitting out of the market. Credit requirements are still much tighter than they were before the housing collapse, so much of the activity in the housing market is from wealthier families looking to trade up — and they’re looking for bigger and better.

Another, possibly overlooked contributor? Politics. A 2012 paper by Stanford political scientist Adam Bonica found that builders and construction firms were among the most politically conservative businesses in America, judged by their owners and employees’ contributions to political parties. And a Pew Research Center study last year found that conservatives overwhelmingly prefer communities where “the houses are larger and farther apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away.”

I don’t know how much of this is just political. To suggest so means that both sides can claim the other is trying to push a particular agenda: conservatives argue liberals are trying to force everyone into big cities and liberals can argue developers are politically connected people who only want to serve the wealthy. Either cities or McMansions become the big enemy. I would instead privilege two factors. First, an economic situation where many Americans don’t have the money to purchase a home (the homeownership rate is down overall) as well as a housing market that is primarily catering to wealthier buyers (there are more profits to be made in more expensive homes). Second, there is an American ideology that privileges individualism and private space, values that aren’t exclusively conservative or necessarily related to the exurbs. For example, the suburbs are not full of McMansions; suburbs range from inner-ring suburbs to exurbs with a wide range of housing and populations.

“Used McMansions are selling briskly”

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More evidence of a bifurcated housing market: used McMansions and other expensive homes are selling just fine.

One way to look at the breakdown of home sales by price range: Used McMansions seem to be selling quickly.

While the rate of sales growth in January for existing-home sales was 3.2% from January 2014 levels, it was 13% in the $750,000–to–$1 million range, according to National Association of Realtors data released Monday. A “McMansion” is a pejorative term for relatively ostentatious and newer-construction homes targeting the upper middle class.

That’s the fastest growth of any price range, and comes after 10.4% growth for that segment in December.

“It’s a reflection of the U.S. economy where the upper end has done much better in this recovery in terms of income,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the NAR.

Two quick thoughts:

1. Just because a home in this price range does not mean it is a McMansion. The data seems to be based only on price, not on year of construction or location of the home or size and design. Even with the definition of McMansion provided, I’m not sure why the term is applied here as it is misleading.

2. One of the critiques of McMansions is that they are poorly made and won’t last. Yet, data like this suggests such homes (even if mislabeled) can make it through at least one buying and selling cycle. Might many McMansions simply be like many other homes and last for decades?