I wonder if a meltdown in the RE market would have an effect on the expectations of the following generation? In the current environment, a young wage earner has no expectation of being able to afford the type of houses their parents are buying right now. The point of entry is just too high and other demands are being made on their income that the parents didn’t have to deal with.
The young adults I run into seem to have different priorities. Several of them have commented that they could be perfectly happy with the smaller house so long as they could keep the big truck. I’m sure those priorities will evolve as they rack up more responsibilities, but I wonder if the design trends pushing for high-style in smaller areas might take root, in part as a reaction to the excesses of this decade.
Remember the cars of the 1960s? We started out the decade with big fins and massive grills and by the time 1973 rolled around everyone was trying to jam into a 4-cylinder Japanese car. Some of it was energy costs, but I think some of it was backlash, too. It seems like the masses will follow a trend to it’s extreme and then when it becomes too much they reverse course.