What do think of the "McMansion" style of home? Do you think homes are getting way too big? Or they're just right?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
I was driving around, and I noticed that the newer the house, the bigger it was. The houses built in the 1950s/60s tend to be small. That's the kind I grew up in.- a small Caoe Cod. Our living room was only 12 X 12. Then the 70s & 80s, there the ranch home-still bigger. I noticed that all the new homes are "McMansions". Lots of bedrooms and baths, garages, large open floor plans. I was wondering do you think our homes are getting way too big? Considering the tiny homes most of us grew up in.
 

IMO life in a small ranch or cape with one bath was a better place for kids to grow up and learn social skills than some of today's larger homes.

IMO kids have too much privacy and alone time.

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Houses in the UK are small compared to those in most other places. They also have very little garden and garages just about big enough to keep a couple of bikes. House builders try to tell us that this is what people want, while the truth is more likely that they are just greedy for profit.
Modern houses are often flimsy and built as cheaply as possibly. I would never buy a new house in Scotland unless it was built to my specifications.
 
What I've noticed, at least in my city, is the houses are getting larger and the lots are so small you can reach out the window and practically touch your neighbor's house.
It reminds me of when I lived in Chicago where the apartment buildings just had a narrow sidewalk between them. You could open your window and ask to borrow the neighbor's ketchup.
 
I read an article about this sometime in the 90s; the writer interviewed a bunch of high school physical education teachers here in the states who reported that they were starting to have a problem with the kids not taking showers after P.E. class and it was due to the fact that a lot of kids were growing up in homes that, as you pointed out, the kids had their own bathrooms, making them too squeamish about showering around others.
 
I had been wanting to mention this...
There was a house down the street...an adaquate ranch style..built late '60s...lady died...son sold it off..
Public records said for $5.5k..bought.... torn down.
Curious..as humongous two story was being built.
Called Realtor...6 Bedroom, 5-1/2 b.....for $1.6M.
Oh! well...
There go...my property taxes.🤨

P.S. And, it'll probably sell..as we are in a very good school district..
Blue ribbon elem., Middle school, and H.S
 
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With rising energy prices, hyper inflation in the price of housing and higher prices for almost everything, there are going to be a lot of people stuck with huge monster houses. Maybe it ok in California but not so good if you are in the great white frozen north and have to heat your house.
 
officerripley said:
I read an article about this sometime in the 90s; the writer interviewed a bunch of high school physical education teachers here in the states who reported that they were starting to have a problem with the kids not taking showers after P.E. class and it was due to the fact that a lot of kids were growing up in homes that, as you pointed out, the kids had their own bathrooms, making them too squeamish about showering around others.
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Don't think squeamish is the word. Unless you're training kids for communal life in the military, which, for boys at least was the original idea behind this, I don't think it's right to force a kid to give up their right to privacy.
 
Here in Orlando, we have the "McMansionification" of older neighborhoods.

You'll have a street of charming little 40's and 50's bungalows and BAM! three get torn down and two gigantic new houses (architecturally unsuitable for the 'hood)ake their place.

Or what's even worse, they tear down two bungalows and put up THREE nightmares. How they get that past the building code, I don't know. I assume palms are greased and deals are made.

That happened on the street behind where I used to live years ago. The new 3 story houses were only a skinny driveway apart and had 2 story attached garages behind them. Hardly any front yard, literally no back yard, and of course they had to take down the magnificent oaks.
 
MountainRa said:
I hate the McMansions. A couple builds a huge house, in the blink of an eye the children grow up and move away, and the parents are left wandering around a house never built for aging in place.
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Yup. I agree. My ex lived in a "community". All the homes were built about the same time. Now, they made it a 'retirement' community. But the houses are 3 bedroom, 2 bath homes. What retiree wants a 3brm, 2 bath home?
 
Housing prices have been going up to ridiculous levels, in the past couple of years. People are taking on huge mortgages. There are already early signs of the housing market slowing down, and the beginning of another "housing bubble" leaving many of them with huge house payments on properties that are declining in value.

finance.yahoo.com/news/pending-home-sales-january-2022-150002391.html

Personally, I look upon a house as a place to eat, sleep, and bathe....but Not an "investment".
 
We owned a ranch style brick with full basement that was 95% finished. 3,200 sq ft top/bottom, 5 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2 family rooms, 2 kitchens, formal living & dining rooms that were hardly used. We sold, moved into a 2 bedroom 960 sq home (paid off) after retirement and haven't been happier. 3,200 is not a McMansion by today's standards. 960 sq ft with small yard is what we want to manage & pay taxes on.
 
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Capt Lightning said:
Houses in the UK are small compared to those in most other places. They also have very little garden and garages just about big enough to keep a couple of bikes. House builders try to tell us that this is what people want, while the truth is more likely that they are just greedy for profit.
Modern houses are often flimsy and built as cheaply as possibly. I would never buy a new house in Scotland unless it was built to my specifications.
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Ditto... ^^^
 
caroln said:
What I've noticed, at least in my city, is the houses are getting larger and the lots are so small you can reach out the window and practically touch your neighbor's house.
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Yep, I think that is happening most everywhere. The population is growing, the land is not. I prefer more land and less house, though I am guilty of living in a too big house...
 
I tried googling about house size, and I found this interesting info, apparently there was a reason houses were getting so big, but now they are getting smaller again.

Article I read:
The square footage of completed homes has increased over the past two decades but has been declining in the past few years.

The median single-family house completed in 2020 had a floor area of 2,261 square feet. This is around 90 square feet, or 4.2%, larger than the median house built in 2010 and around 200 square feet, or 9.9%, larger than the median in 2000.

The median square footage of a new completed house reached a high of 2,467 in 2015. Except for a slight increase in 2017, the median square footage of new completed homes has been declining ever since.

Rose Quint, National Association of Home Builders' assistant vice president for survey research, told Insider the average size of new homes started in a year increased from 2009 until it peaked in 2015 because mortgage lending became difficult after the housing recession .

"And as a result, many buyers, even financially solid buyers, were shut out of the new home market," Quint told Insider. "Particularly younger and first-time buyers were shut out of the market by the absolute tightness in the underwriting of mortgage loans."

Because of this, Quint said single-family homes being built "reflected the preferences of those buyers that were still in the game." These buyers were typically wealthier and had equity in their current homes meaning they could then sell their homes and trade up.

"And so, as a result, when you look at the characteristics overall of the new homes that were started between '09 and '15, you'll see that homes got bigger and bigger, and they were more loaded with amenities year after year steadily between '09 and 2015," Quint said.

But after 2015, the average size of homes has declined. Quint said this is because builders were responding to a market with more younger and first-time homebuyers. Millennials were also in their prime home-buying years, and underwriting wasn't as hard as it was years earlier.
 
We moved around a lot and NEVER bought a newly built house. I always felt that the ultimate "recycle" was to buy an existing home and decorate tastefully and/or fix it up as we could afford. As our family grew (and grew up), we were able to parlay each move to a slightly larger home. The boys did have ultimately their own rooms but we always shared a bathroom! (Growing up, my sisters and I were able to have our own rooms and we always shared a bathroom too.) Now, the sizes and prices on everything seem to have gotten out of control and we downsized to a 200 + year old home in Maine - the last affordable house in our town. Recycle!
 
I think one reason why yard size has gotten so small is kids don't play outside like they used to. Some kids don't want to--they'd rather play video games, etc--and some parents don't want their kids playing outside due to air quality, temperature, etc. I know around here, seems like about 9 or 10 months out of the year, the air is just full of smoke due to all the fires (which is only supposed to get worse, never better) and it's usually 100 degrees or close to it.
 
I think, Mr. and Mrs. McMansion, have raised the cost of living so effing high that, Nobody earning under 6 figures, can survive within a 1000 mile radius of their gated golf country yacht club communities. I think, their affluent presence has Priced-Out everyone who is not filthy rich
 

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