Tag Archives: smaller house

“Shunning the McMansion”

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Earlier this week, US News & World Report ran a story titled “Why We’re Shunning the McMansion.” Here seems to be the main data in this article:

Only 9 percent of consumers surveyed said they wanted a home 3,200 square feet or larger, according to a recent study by the NAR, while the majority of house hunters—about 55 percent—preferred homes in the 1,400 to 2,600 square-foot range. Builders also plan to scale back new home sizes as well, with 9 out of 10 builders expecting to build smaller, lower-priced homes in the coming years, according to a study by the NAHB.

Despite the drop in desired median home square footage, Melman says it’s not so much a matter of downsizing as “right-sizing”—forgoing larger homes with unused space for smaller, more efficient and well-laid-out homes. Americans are reconsidering the notion of financially stretching themselves to the limit to purchase a large home. “The trend here is shelter value,” he says. “Affordability is driving the decisions. If you buy a home that’s a little bit smaller, that’s one way to get some control over energy costs and the overall costs of the home.”

The article goes on to say more about how affordability is the primary driver of this trend, particularly due to increased difficulties in obtaining mortgages.

Several things strike me in this summary:

1. What is the percentage of Americans surveyed who said they wanted a home between 2,600 and 3,200 square feet? If we knew this percentage, we could add this to the 9 percent who want a home bigger than 3,200 square feet. Why not say what percentage of Americans want a home bigger than the average new house size of roughly 2,450 square feet? Also, to better make this point, it would be helpful to compare this data to earlier surveys about what size homes Americans want.

2. I still would be interested in seeing some data about how much cheaper these smaller homes are. If one wants a smaller home but wants a lot of features, that still might cost quite a bit. And might we see some of the design trends of bigger homes, such as stucco exteriors or always-on gas lamps, trickle down to these smaller homes?

3. The article seems to set the size of McMansions at 3,200 feet and above. So all homes with this square-footage or above are automatically a McMansion?

The future of McMansions: torn down for smaller homes?

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In a typical teardown situation, an older home, often in a pleasant neighborhood, is torn down and replaced by a larger, modern home. One Greenwich, Connecticut realtor suggests this pattern might be reversed in the future:

Pruner is also detecting a trend away from “McMansions” with massive square footage to smaller-scale well-built homes.

“I can foresee the newspaper headline: ‘McMansion taken down for more modest house,'” he said.

It is not bold to suggest that Americans want smaller homes: a number of sources, including the National Association of Home Builders, have noted this. But to suggest that larger homes will be torn down and replaced with smaller homes seems more unlikely. In order for this to happen, the McMansion would have to be relatively cheap and the property really desirable. Even after the drop in housing values, a big house is going to be relatively expensive and with many critics suggesting McMansions are also built in terrible suburban neighborhoods often made up of a lot of McMansion, I’m not sure there are many locations that fit this bill. And building a “more modest house” doesn’t necessarily mean a cheaper house – small homes can have a lot of features that drive up the price. But to tear down a larger space, whether it is a McMansion or a big box store, it seems like the conditions would have to be perfect and then it would be difficult for this to be a trend.