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

grew up in little cape cod... wasn't even finished when i was born. dad & pop-pop finished off 2nd floor... potential for 2 bedrooms. only ONE bathroom. this was in the "Levittown" days... late 40's. seems like a house just like ours went on every vacant lot in our little burb.

by very early 60's "developments" were the thing... split-level became the thing... and a powder room... and a "rec room".

i did a custom paint job in the kitchen of a house in Colts Neck, NJ... BIG money. a kitchen to die for... 6 burner restaurant style range with 2 ovens. island with things like trash compactor, wine fridge tucked in around perimeter. oh, and homeowner didn't cook... had a drawer or 2 jammed full of take-out menus.

i guess as long as you can afford to PAY someone to do all the cleaning... i'd go for it.
 

Around here, if you want a small house on a decent sized lot you'll have to buy an older home. All the new construction is either big houses on small lots, or condominiums or apartments packed together. It's due to demand exceeding supply and the price of land. Our house was built in 1954 when there were still orange groves all around. We bought it in '67. It's a typical 3 bedroom tract house with a good sized back yard. We paid $22,500 for it and Zillow now says it's worth almost $700,000. When a house goes up for sale in our neighborhood, it sells fast. Often, it's an investor who rents it out.

I guess the people with the McMansions and tiny lots just don't want a yard. Where do they go to sit and watch squirrels?
 
I grew up in a small enclave of Ranch-style homes in Tampa, FL on a canal off the Gulf of Mexico. Our house was probably 2000 square feet at the most. My parents sold in 2005. I went back to visit in 2009, and the house I grew up in had been torn down and had been replaced by a garish McMansion that barely fit on the lot. It still had one-story ranch style homes surrounding it with very little land on each side.

https://www.movoto.com/tampa-fl/3927-americana-dr-tampa-fl-33634/pid_u3p90dp8ah/

I now see this in Dallas as well in "transitional" neighborhoods. Small houses built in the 1960's surrounded by McMansions.

We did learn when we moved here that builders don't make money unless they build big houses. Our realtor showed us a huge house that we loved but we didn't need that much space. He arranged for us to meet with the builder who told us he wouldn't build a smaller house because there would be no profit. :(
 

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If a builder has room for 10 nice lots but can squeeze in 15, you know that’s what they’re going to do.

These McMansions have to be furnished, heated, cooled, cleaned, maintained, taxed, repaired. The bigger it is, the more it costs. The Jones may be able to afford it, many who desire the lifestyle can’t. It’s a shame to see young folks overextending themselves and then overworking to deal with it.
 
Jules said:
If a builder has room for 10 nice lots but can squeeze in 15, you know that’s what they’re going to do.

These McMansions have to be furnished, heated, cooled, cleaned, maintained, taxed, repaired. The bigger it is, the more it costs. The Jones may be able to afford it, many who desire the lifestyle can’t. It’s a shame to see young folks overextending themselves and then overworking to deal with it.
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So true. The bigger the house is, the more it costs to maintain. Our average house costs so much in terms of maintenance, cooling, heating, property taxes, etc. I can't even imagine what it would cost to maintain a McMansion.
 
I had a look online to see what data I could find on UK housing over several decades. The overall average size is shown in in this graph.
Note that this only shows the habitable area and does not include hallways, stairs, lobbies etc.. Figures are in sq mtrs, so multiply by 10.8 to get sq ft.

overall-house-size-uk.jpg

As you can see, the average house size rose after ww2 and peaked in the 70's - falling back to pre-war levels today. When we retired, we slightly upsized to an old house.
 
I also grew up in a small, Cape Cod styled house with a small but adequate yard. I grew up thinking that we were poor because my father was fiscally conservative, and didn’t indulge in luxuries like a color TV or air conditioning until years after they were commonplace. Social ostentation and conspicuous consumption began to be a thing in the suburbs in the later 60’s and beyond, and many people acquired bigger houses and more luxurious cars than they really needed.

People were encouraged by loaners to buy beyond their need or means to keep up with the Jone’s, and be socially competitive. It’s a mentality that I’m better than you because of what I own, even if I’m up to my eyeballs in debt. There is no burden greater than that of rising expectations…
 
I worked in the Contruction field starting in the 80's, and continued helping PT since... Plus the Ambulance has put me in many homes... I have seen some INSANE sized homes. The wildest was a 5000 SqFt SINGLE BEDROOM home... the bedroom is over twice the size of our house we are remolding..... Had 3 bathrooms and 3 laundry rooms.

I think its a show of stupidity
 
We have a large home. Embarrassed to tell you how big. Hub built it and I mean "literally". My mom, who became legally blind at 56, moved in with us and loved helping us. It gave her a new lease on life. Never had a mortgage. Just sweat equity.

When I look back, don't know how we ever did it and my mom said she saw hub do things she never knew a man could do. It was a desire of hub's to build his own home. He modeled the house after the cold room at an Anheuser-Busch brewery (he was start up project engineer for their engineers & building company) in the old days.
Its energy efficient in a warmer weather environment.

The house is not hard to keep clean and has many many large windows on 12 acres. Its made from interlocking cement blocks with hundreds of thousands of pounds of cement poured through it. Kind of like a high rise. There is a gated community of "starter castles" and I do mean large normal stick built ones, at the end of our road, which is also gated. We do love it, though!

Have lived here since 1984.
 
That is awesome, Liberty!

What bothers me a lot about the McMansions is that often, the people move into an older community and tear down the existing house, because they like the location. Then they put up their ridiculously large palace, often out of keeping with the rest of the neighborhood. Some of them look ridiculous. Everybody's taxes go up, and the older, smaller houses lose value.
 
Sunny said:
That is awesome, Liberty!

What bothers me a lot about the McMansions is that often, the people move into an older community and tear down the existing house, because they like the location. Then they put up their ridiculously large palace, often out of keeping with the rest of the neighborhood. Some of them look ridiculous. Everybody's taxes go up, and the older, smaller houses lose value.
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Around the metro Houston area, that type of house is referred to as "fat bas-tard" houses.
Funny thing happened...our company attorney, many years ago, bought two lots, demo'd the small very old house on it and built a new one. He kept getting property taxed for both houses on both lots and had to go to a lot of trouble to prove there was only one house on two lots....lol.
 
I have no issue with what size house people choose to live in .. other than driving up real-estate costs.
It is getting more and more difficult for those in their 30's to afford a house, considering the average price is over a million.
 
Absolutely. And as I have mentioned before, all I see being built are houses to buy and apartments to rent. Nothing in between like smaller home communities, mobile home parks, condos to buy after the fires that caused prices to go up in my area. Nothing is built for the needs of the people it seems. Only to make money.
 
When our kids were growing up our house was about 1300 square feet, 3 bedrooms one bath. The mobile home we have now has about 1300 sq feet and has 2 bedrooms, 2 very small but full bathrooms. The addition has a very large mudroom and a larger room that could be used as a bedroom, but at present it is used as a parking lot for our disability scooters and a workroom for DH. Now that we are old those 2 bathrooms are necessary!!!
 
I grew up in a small brick post-war home that was solidly built. I liked it but wished that some day I would live in a much larger house. Many decades later, I lived in a Tutor-style McMansion with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, two living rooms, multiple fireplaces, huge kitchen and dining room, built-in pool, full apartment over the three car garage, blah, blah, blah. It was all house, very little land. Upkeep, taxes, remodeling and utilities were crushing.

After my husband and I divorced, I sold the house and moved into a small brick post-war home that was solidly built. It needed A LOT of updating and repairs, most of which are done now, thankfully. I have a nice piece of property and lots of open space around me.

I'll take this any day over a McMansion.
 
When I was young there were eight of us in 4 BR, 1 BA. We were 5 kids, 3 adults. More than once when someone was taking a bath, rather than waiting it out the kids would go outside and pee in the woods. Family moved to a different state. 5 BR 2 BA. It felt like heaven to have that second bathroom, which also had a shower.

DH and I bought a 1500 SF 4 BR, 2 BA house in 1985 and within four years we'd added 1000 SF and a third bathroom. We're still here.

One of the things I've noticed... when kids have their own spaces they tend to get along better. Just like too many rats in a cage, too many humans in a small space can get mighty irritable. Our children had their own bedrooms which sure kept the fighting down.
 
When my husband was alive, we had a large four-bedroom house in WA state. We loved it, though it was obviously too big for us. Eventually, we moved back to MD to be near our children, and got a big, three-bedroom condo in our senior community, which was still too big but nice. After he died, I stayed there by myself for 5 years, and finally decided to move to something smaller.

So I downsized once again, to a 2-bedroom condo, same community, nicer, newer building. To me, it made sense to live in a smaller space, since it was just me. Yet, yesterday I visied a lady who has a beautiful, very large apartment, which she lives in alone and absolutely loves. She said she bought it while the building was under construction, and specifically asked for the largest model.

So, different strokes.
 
Liberty said:
We have a large home. Embarrassed to tell you how big. Hub built it and I mean "literally". My mom, who became legally blind at 56, moved in with us and loved helping us. It gave her a new lease on life. Never had a mortgage. Just sweat equity.

When I look back, don't know how we ever did it and my mom said she saw hub do things she never knew a man could do. It was a desire of hub's to build his own home. He modeled the house after the cold room at an Anheuser-Busch brewery (he was start up project engineer for their engineers & building company) in the old days.
Its energy efficient in a warmer weather environment.

The house is not hard to keep clean and has many many large windows on 12 acres. Its made from interlocking cement blocks with hundreds of thousands of pounds of cement poured through it. Kind of like a high rise. There is a gated community of "starter castles" and I do mean large normal stick built ones, at the end of our road, which is also gated. We do love it, though!

Have lived here since 1984.
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Nothing to be embarrassed about @Liberty. Everything is bigger in Texas! :ROFLMAO:

When we moved to Dallas in 2006 from South Florida we had every intention of downsizing but for the money we were looking to spend there were really no decent smaller homes available. Plus, your hubby is in construction so he built what he wanted. (y)
 
Grampa Don said:
I bet cavemen fought over the biggest cave. There seems to be a human tendency to think that bigger is better. Look at all the huge SUV's and pickups on the road. What is rarer than a rich person living in a small house?
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Warren Buffet is the only rare individual I am aware of. He has lived in the same house for many years. It is still large but at least it has character. Good for him for realizing material possessions aren't the key to happiness. (y)

 
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jujube said:
Today, it seems that every kid must have their own bedroom and it's a problem if all the kids have to share the "hall bath".

We were lucky to have our own bed and the whole family shared one bathroom. We survived.
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We didn't have indoor plumbing till i was about 4 1/2 years old. Well water hauled in, heated on propane stove (no electricity in that house either). The next house had only 1 bathroom for whole family. We 4 girls (ages 4 to 14) slept two each to full size beds in bedroom that was 20+ x 30+ ft area. i don't know what it was originally used for-- bigger than whole rest of house. Parents converted a small porch to their bedroom.

That was in Florida and most of the year i could spend most of day outside. I'd even read perched in a tree.
 
To each their own. Different individuals and families have different needs, at different times of life. Since my 30s books have made up the bulk of possessions moved from one house to another. When i retired my must have was a chunk of land surrounding house. We have 4.9 acres and the house is 1400 sq ft.

The house was built in 1850s as main home for large ranch which was long ago divided between descendants of that family, This house and plot passed out of that family some 80 or so years ago. Living room is about a third of total size. We needed 3 bedrooms for when family visits.

Both daughter and i value solitude this house affords us the peace and quiet we crave but still easy to have discussions and help each other with things when we need/want to.
 

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