They are far too much house on far too small a budget. They are about maximizing those wealth-connotating features of a home which are comprehensible to the upp

They are far too much house on far too small a budget. They are about maximizing those wealth-connotating features of a home which are comprehensible to the upper-middle-class laypeople who buy them: raw square footage, bed/bath count, "classical" architectural features (poorly executed, because the intent is to check "expensive-looking" boxes, not actually to execute a quality building). This same style is very consistently-expressed at differing scales in different housing markets across the U.S.; the lot size varies with land prices but the ethos is the same.