4 ms·

For someone living in the UK that sounds like a far off utopia. Government recommendations are about 1000sqft for a family of five. https://www.gov.uk/governmen

For someone living in the UK that sounds like a far off utopia. Government recommendations are about 1000sqft for a family of five. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing...

alistairSH 10y ago
We have a lot more space in the US. A typical 4-bedroom suburban home is somewhere around 1800sq/ft and, anecdotally, that number has been creeping up. Of course, all the space also has massive drawbacks... car-centric culture, sprawl, long commutes, harder to implement public transit, etc.
- malyk 10y ago
  Not just anecdotally... In 1973 average house size was ~1500 sq ft. In 2010 it's ~2200 sq ft. https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf
- philipkglass 10y ago
  Other drawbacks to house size inflation: more space that needs cleaning/maintaining/heating/cooling, higher costs for buyers who want to own a house in a neighborhood but don't need or want to pay for extra space. In the area I live in -- not even a big city -- you're basically forced to choose house size and house age at the same time. If you want only 1400 SF you're buying an old house with old quirks (asbestos, a history of lead paint, old wiring...) If you want a new house you're buying more square feet and the additional burdens thereof (more space to heat and cool, more space to clean). There's practically no such thing as a new well built small house, or at least none that I could find when I was buying. I ended up in a 1940s house because all the newly built houses were too large for my tastes. And those huge new houses often had huge lawns that needed a riding lawnmower and ridiculous amounts of water (why is everyone landscaping a desert climate like we live in rainy England, argh...) Is there some weird feedback loop going on? "Our sales indicators show that buyers preferred even-larger new houses this year than last! (Because we didn't give buyers any options to buy smaller new ones.)"
  - alistairSH 10y ago
    The size vs age problem exists in DC as well. And it's exacerbated by the land value - many of the older, smaller homes are torn down to build mansions, even if the original house is perfectly livable. And it's even worse because the older house frequently has "better bones".

alistairSH 10y ago

We have a lot more space in the US. A typical 4-bedroom suburban home is somewhere around 1800sq/ft and, anecdotally, that number has been creeping up. Of course, all the space also has massive drawbacks... car-centric culture, sprawl, long commutes, harder to implement public transit, etc.

malyk 10y ago
Not just anecdotally... In 1973 average house size was ~1500 sq ft. In 2010 it's ~2200 sq ft. https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf
philipkglass 10y ago
Other drawbacks to house size inflation: more space that needs cleaning/maintaining/heating/cooling, higher costs for buyers who want to own a house in a neighborhood but don't need or want to pay for extra space. In the area I live in -- not even a big city -- you're basically forced to choose house size and house age at the same time. If you want only 1400 SF you're buying an old house with old quirks (asbestos, a history of lead paint, old wiring...) If you want a new house you're buying more square feet and the additional burdens thereof (more space to heat and cool, more space to clean). There's practically no such thing as a new well built small house, or at least none that I could find when I was buying. I ended up in a 1940s house because all the newly built houses were too large for my tastes. And those huge new houses often had huge lawns that needed a riding lawnmower and ridiculous amounts of water (why is everyone landscaping a desert climate like we live in rainy England, argh...) Is there some weird feedback loop going on? "Our sales indicators show that buyers preferred even-larger new houses this year than last! (Because we didn't give buyers any options to buy smaller new ones.)"
- alistairSH 10y ago
  The size vs age problem exists in DC as well. And it's exacerbated by the land value - many of the older, smaller homes are torn down to build mansions, even if the original house is perfectly livable. And it's even worse because the older house frequently has "better bones".