KB Home says the average square footage of houses currently under contract is 2,079, an increase of 13% from last year. And more KB buyers are picking models that exceed 3,500 square feet.
That is a change from the past few years, when builders were downsizing houses to accommodate an era of frugality and austerity. As the economy slowly improves and some consumers’ anxieties ease, buyers are upsizing again—though there is far less demand than before for huge houses loaded with upgrades.
According to the Census Bureau, the average size of a newly built home was 2,480 square feet in 2011. That was up 3.7% from 2010 and represented the first annual increase since 2007.
In places where land is expensive I would think you would see two types of housing being built.
Condos and McMansions,
You need cheap land to build small single family homes and make a profit IMO.
[quote=The-Shoveler]In places where land is expensive I would think you would see two types of housing being built.
Condos and McMansions,
You need cheap land to build small single family homes and make a profit IMO.[/quote]
Which is not most part of San Diego. Too bad there’s no new development with 5k sq-ft average lot and house size of 1100-1400 sq-ft single story house.
My house is one of the larger house in my area and it’s smaller than your average home today.
[quote=squat250]is the average meaningful? what about the median. maybe some giant house is throwing off the average.
the average house generally stays about the same size for its lifetime.[/quote]
I think you missed the part where the statistic is for newly built houses.
To me it is meaningful, but it could be that I (and others) am misinterpreting it – it could mean that more households are multigenerational, as CDMA points out, for any of several reasons: a greater number of immigrants (who tend to live with several generations under 1 roof), college grads moving back home, more seniors in the population now, etc.
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