San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Is that 500 sf per person regardless of age, or is it permitted to have less than 500 sf for toddlers?

I saw a statistic that Soviet Union averaged 170 sf per person in 1991.

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esmith--

Thanks. I believe my long-ago source said that 500 square feet is an American thing. However, I am inclined to agree with you: size of persons matters. How much room do infants/toddlers need? Hubby and I live in about 1,340 square feet, 3BR/2BA. "Great room" is huge, BRs are small. Saving grace is that we have a HUMONGOUS two-story garage, half of which is filled with about five people's "can you save this for me?" stuff. In other words, we don't need one of the BRs as a junk room (although one kinda comes close!). Our kid has her own BR and comes down for college breaks and has her own room...even then, it's not too crowded.

You mean your pets do not have their own room?

Funny you should mention that. The single woman we bought our house from had five cats and they DID have their own room...or, um, private bathroom. One of the BRs contained only their litter boxes and food. Occasionally, one of the cats would quite literally get pissed off and pee on the floor. Cat pee is almost impossible to remove from hardwood floors. We managed to get rid of most of it but there's one rather large stain and we just covered it with an area rug.

You might have to take it down to bare wood and redo the entire floor to get rid of it. At least it was not a murder. I think that kind of thing has to be disclosed when you do sell the house.

Two of us live in a 900 Sq foot house. One car garage filled with "stuff." One big dog, one little dog. Mid size yard by city standards. Would we like more space? Sure....but this will do.

We just bought a 3br/3bath, 1550 sq.ft. house. It feels huge after renting one bedroom apartments forever. There are two of us adults and a cat (who doesn't pee outside the box). We hope to have a baby soon and I think it will be a good size for all of us. There is also a nice little backyard with some grass.. that helps.

Yeah, I know. The reason we haven't redone the floor in that room is that it's our kid's room, and she's only down here during the summer and at Christmas. As it was, the cat pee smell was so bad at first we had to air out that room (fans, windows open, etc.) for two weeks before she could sleep in there.

As for the disclosure of a murder...I read somewhere that the Sharon Tate/Roman Polanski house was hard to sell until a buyer came forward, bought it, tore the whole thing down, built a new house, and changed the address.

The same with the Heaven's Gate house in Rancho Santa Fe.

Interesting topic.

My husband grew up in Philly - in a 1300 sf 3br row house... one of 6 kids... And that was typical for their Italian neighborhood.

We bought the house I grew up in from my dad. It's just over 2000 sf, 4br. We have 2 kids and still have a spare room to use for guests. (Which gets used a lot!) We're a family of 4. But growing up I was in a family of 5. It never felt cramped... I had friends with bigger families in smaller houses.

Prior to buying this house, we rented a 1500 sf 4 br house AND had my inlaws living with us... but only had 1 kid at the time... I will admit that it was more cramped - but that has more to do with 4 adults, one in a wheelchair needing care, puts stress in a situation. It had less to do with space.

My mom was widowed and I was an only child, we lived in a 900 square foot house - it was perfect for us.
I really liked my San Diego house, it felt spacious with 1600 sq ft - 3 bed/2 bath. The only issue is that my son has asperger's (mild autism) and has trouble keeping his modulating his voice (he get very loud), so it can be difficult to get away from the noise. Otherwise I think 1600 sq ft is great for a family of 4.

I grew up in a 2 bedroom 1000sq. ft. apt. My brother and I had bunk beds until we became teenagers. It never was a big deal.. though when we became teenagers we also moved to a bigger house with one more bedroom.. I think it is 1400sq. ft

If I owned a 1600 sq. ft house, it would seem like so much space! The biggest place I've ever lived in.. ahh.. that's the dream right?

I grew up in a 5BR/3BA 2,340-sq.-ft. home in San Diego. This was from the time I was 10 until I left home, late 60s to mid 70s. It was a new 4BR house when my parents bought it, but soon enough they built an addition, a family room, so that the original family room became another BR. My dad told me recently that he and my mom wanted each sib to have her own room. I can understand why -- we are a brawling Irish clan and they probably figured that one of us would end up killing another one :). (We still are cautious at family gatherings when carving tools are being utilized!)
Now my dad putters around that big house by himself. It's kind of sad. But he's closed off all the upstairs rooms except for two. Why won't he move? Prop 13, of course. He paid only $800 in prop taxes last year.

I am hoping that the kids of Baby Boomers like me (they're called the Echo Boomers or Millenials, and their generation is almost as large as mine) are learning that personal space is becoming increasingly limited. Our kid has a friend at UCLA who shares a room in a dorm that is about the size of one of our small bedrooms with two other girls. Our daughter is living in a room in a private home that is so small she has to crawl across her bed to get to her desk/computer. BFD. At 20, she can handle it, and she doesn't complain about it.

Thanks for all the great responses.