4 ms·

Isn't the reasonable question more - why aren't all houses big? I don't want a big house because I don't want to have to decorate a bunch of big rooms and don'

Isn't the reasonable question more - why aren't all houses big? I don't want a big house because I don't want to have to decorate a bunch of big rooms and don't have a family to house - but I would quite like a decent amount of land, both for the setback and for gardening, forestry, etc. For the most part, the downsides to having a large home are primarily financial, secondary effects are environmental (we can probably fix the transport issues, but sprawl actually affects ecosystems). I mean, if you can afford a big old mansion in Central London you buy it and live in it. It seems to me that all the article is saying is that America is a wealthy country.

notus 7y ago
Taking care of a large home is a lot of work. Unless someone is a stay at home person you're pretty much guaranteed to need a maid every once in a while.
- mikeash 7y ago
  Thankfully, professional cleaners are not difficult to find.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  Why a maid? I have a few relatives with very large homes. (one has a pool and tennis court) and none of them have maids. But also, I've had relatives that were maids, and the places they cleaned weren't always large. More often the owners were just busy people.
  - conductr 7y ago
    That’s me, I’ll make my self busy doing anything if it justifies the maid. I just don’t enjoy that type of work, I loath it quite a bit
    - souprock 7y ago
      What about your privacy and security? That maid is essentially a stranger, wandering around in your house, with a perfect excuse to be poking into everything.
      - notus 7y ago
        I use word of mouth recommendations for finding housekeepers rather than a service. I think a lot of people do it this way. I have cameras around my place anyways but at some point you're just going to have to make your own judgements about the trustworthiness of someone.
      - conductr 7y ago
        Same lady for 10+ years. I wouldn’t use a service that sends a different person every week. She’s basically family. There is some small effort to keep jewels locked up, my paper work is in safety deposit box. But she does see what’s in our nightstand and our dirty undies. It’s not a big deal, she’s a professional and has discretion. Sounds elitist af but she doesn’t exactly run in the same social circles as her clients so it’s not like she’s out there gossiping about our home life details. Edit; word of mouth is key. While we have a long term person now, we’ve had some ups and downs in the past. Get people’s recommendations before you hire someone. Two reasons; you’ll know they’re good maids (a lot are not good), also most of their clients have come from word of mouth so if they really screw up/steal their business basically evaporates as word spreads. Likewise if you help them with referrals, they will treat you very well (eg our lady will come over after a dinner party, gathering, etc). You also have to “train” them. Even if they’re good, you have some quirks and preferences they would never guess
  - notus 7y ago
    Doesn't have to be a full-time maid, it's just a lot of work to do regular deep cleanings of large homes IMO so sometimes you need help, but it definitely depends on your disposition towards that type of work and your time commitments.
koyote 7y ago
> It seems to me that all the article is saying is that America is a wealthy country. More like a country with a lot of land.
- refurb 7y ago
  Directly contradicted by the article.
  - koyote 7y ago
    You can't have one without the other. Sure, houses in Ex-Soviet countries aren't as big as the ones in the US even though there is a lot of land. But good luck building an American sized house in a Western European country without paying a magnitude of what you would pay for the same amount of land in the US. From the article: “In most European countries, it’s much harder legally to build on unbuilt area than it is here,”. Most of the land is indirectly in use, either as farm land, national parkland or owned by the crown in the case of some countries (UK).
woah 7y ago
Living in a large house means that you will live in a less dense area. Housing price trends over the last 10 years have shown that most people don’t want that.
- swsieber 7y ago
  I don't think you can quite draw the conclusion. Housing price trends over the last 10 years could just as easily show a consolidating job market.
- conductr 7y ago
  I don’t think people go out seeking density. The are avoiding a commute or being near entertainment district etc. It’s likely there are some large houses nearby too. They just require a different budget. But I bet most people would live in them if hey could.
  - ijiiijji1 7y ago
    People have different needs at different stages and situations in their lives, but most typically seek opportunity in youth which tends to necessitate density and then later prefer quiet and low density to get away from the horrors, costs and inconveniences of city life.
jib 7y ago
Living now in the US I am confused why houses are so big and yards so small. Well, not confused, it makes financial sense for builders, but a bit sad. I’d much rather have a smaller house but with a yard I can grow stuff in, or be outside in, than a 3000 Sqft house on a 8000sqft plot.
- esotericn 7y ago
  I don't live in the US, but I hear endless stories about something called a "home owners association" or whatever else that seem to imply that in suburban situations, having substantial amounts of outside space might be pointless because you can't actually use it as you feel fit - e.g. something basic like stacking building materials outside might be considered Unsightly(tm). So you have to actually go rural to do stuff. Or is that something that's restricted to only a few special neighbourhoods? I can't imagine even entertaining the idea of buying a home there. If my neighbour demanded I cut the grass or something daft like that and backed it up with a legal threat I'd either have to move out or just eventually go postal.
  - wyldfire 7y ago
    It's very common in some parts of the country. AFAICT it's much more common in the south. There's definitely places in the northern states that have HOAs but it feels much less ubiquitous. Also, IIRC many/most condos and townhomes often have something like an HOA that serves their common interests and joint expenses.
  - prawn 7y ago
    I've read of cases where people haven't been able to have a neat vegetable garden in their front yard, or xeriscape with a rock/cactus garden. Strikes me as crazy.
  - prostoalex 7y ago
    > having substantial amounts of outside space might be pointless because you can't actually use it as you feel fit While front yards might fall onto that, backyards are pretty much off-limits to HOA, unless one does things that inconvenience neighbors, like obstruct their view or keep animals that are noisy.
ACow_Adonis 7y ago
We can suggest that isn't the reasonable question, going to extremes here, by the observation that we don't just connect all our houses by interlinking corridors to create the "biggest houses" possible (well, ok, some particularly ostentatious americans do pretty much that with mega-mansions, but I would argue that's pretty much obviously conspicuous consumption which is itself an interesting phenomenon). Put another way, in addition to the obvious considerations: cost, depreciation, heating, etc, shelter and design also provide the ability to bring things together into proximity, emphasise, demarcate and exclude. Design in houses is the same as in all things: the biggest car is not the best, the biggest desk is not the best, the biggest bookshelf is not the best, the biggest kitchen is not the best. Or like in computer design, packing things too tightly together is bad, but spacing them too far apart is as well. Perhaps there is a particular note that American culture has tended off to right of the bell curve in many things on the size scale: biggest food servings, bigger cars, big houses, etc. As the article notes, wealth clearly has SOMETHING to do with it, but there's also clearly something else going on, because people with a lot of money and from other cultures are fully capable of looking at some of those things and judging them as poor/bad.
onion2k 7y ago
... if you can afford a big old mansion in Central London you buy it and live in it. A very significant proportion of central London mansions are bought by foreign investors specifically not to live in. It's a common form of money laundering.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
It also matters where you live. You can buy a stupifyingly large house in small communities for very little money. Why is a $250,000 old mansion in a rural or non-trendy area more objectionable than a tiny closet in SF or NYC? I’d say it is actually less objectionable and more sane. My job doesn’t require me to live in a metro area anymore and my gf and I are looking at moving to a more rural area and salivating at the home prices. We could live in the huge house that the town’s founder lived in which is on the National Register of historic places for the same price we could buy a horrible small cookie cutter house in the city. I know a lot of HN readers can telecommute and work remotely, don’t be afraid to branch out!

notus 7y ago

Taking care of a large home is a lot of work. Unless someone is a stay at home person you're pretty much guaranteed to need a maid every once in a while.

mikeash 7y ago
Thankfully, professional cleaners are not difficult to find.
RobertRoberts 7y ago
Why a maid? I have a few relatives with very large homes. (one has a pool and tennis court) and none of them have maids. But also, I've had relatives that were maids, and the places they cleaned weren't always large. More often the owners were just busy people.
- conductr 7y ago
  That’s me, I’ll make my self busy doing anything if it justifies the maid. I just don’t enjoy that type of work, I loath it quite a bit
  - souprock 7y ago
    What about your privacy and security? That maid is essentially a stranger, wandering around in your house, with a perfect excuse to be poking into everything.
    - notus 7y ago
      I use word of mouth recommendations for finding housekeepers rather than a service. I think a lot of people do it this way. I have cameras around my place anyways but at some point you're just going to have to make your own judgements about the trustworthiness of someone.
    - conductr 7y ago
      Same lady for 10+ years. I wouldn’t use a service that sends a different person every week. She’s basically family. There is some small effort to keep jewels locked up, my paper work is in safety deposit box. But she does see what’s in our nightstand and our dirty undies. It’s not a big deal, she’s a professional and has discretion. Sounds elitist af but she doesn’t exactly run in the same social circles as her clients so it’s not like she’s out there gossiping about our home life details. Edit; word of mouth is key. While we have a long term person now, we’ve had some ups and downs in the past. Get people’s recommendations before you hire someone. Two reasons; you’ll know they’re good maids (a lot are not good), also most of their clients have come from word of mouth so if they really screw up/steal their business basically evaporates as word spreads. Likewise if you help them with referrals, they will treat you very well (eg our lady will come over after a dinner party, gathering, etc). You also have to “train” them. Even if they’re good, you have some quirks and preferences they would never guess
- notus 7y ago
  Doesn't have to be a full-time maid, it's just a lot of work to do regular deep cleanings of large homes IMO so sometimes you need help, but it definitely depends on your disposition towards that type of work and your time commitments.

koyote 7y ago

> It seems to me that all the article is saying is that America is a wealthy country. More like a country with a lot of land.

refurb 7y ago
Directly contradicted by the article.
- koyote 7y ago
  You can't have one without the other. Sure, houses in Ex-Soviet countries aren't as big as the ones in the US even though there is a lot of land. But good luck building an American sized house in a Western European country without paying a magnitude of what you would pay for the same amount of land in the US. From the article: “In most European countries, it’s much harder legally to build on unbuilt area than it is here,”. Most of the land is indirectly in use, either as farm land, national parkland or owned by the crown in the case of some countries (UK).

woah 7y ago

Living in a large house means that you will live in a less dense area. Housing price trends over the last 10 years have shown that most people don’t want that.

swsieber 7y ago
I don't think you can quite draw the conclusion. Housing price trends over the last 10 years could just as easily show a consolidating job market.
conductr 7y ago
I don’t think people go out seeking density. The are avoiding a commute or being near entertainment district etc. It’s likely there are some large houses nearby too. They just require a different budget. But I bet most people would live in them if hey could.
- ijiiijji1 7y ago
  People have different needs at different stages and situations in their lives, but most typically seek opportunity in youth which tends to necessitate density and then later prefer quiet and low density to get away from the horrors, costs and inconveniences of city life.

jib 7y ago

Living now in the US I am confused why houses are so big and yards so small. Well, not confused, it makes financial sense for builders, but a bit sad. I’d much rather have a smaller house but with a yard I can grow stuff in, or be outside in, than a 3000 Sqft house on a 8000sqft plot.

esotericn 7y ago
I don't live in the US, but I hear endless stories about something called a "home owners association" or whatever else that seem to imply that in suburban situations, having substantial amounts of outside space might be pointless because you can't actually use it as you feel fit - e.g. something basic like stacking building materials outside might be considered Unsightly(tm). So you have to actually go rural to do stuff. Or is that something that's restricted to only a few special neighbourhoods? I can't imagine even entertaining the idea of buying a home there. If my neighbour demanded I cut the grass or something daft like that and backed it up with a legal threat I'd either have to move out or just eventually go postal.
- wyldfire 7y ago
  It's very common in some parts of the country. AFAICT it's much more common in the south. There's definitely places in the northern states that have HOAs but it feels much less ubiquitous. Also, IIRC many/most condos and townhomes often have something like an HOA that serves their common interests and joint expenses.
- prawn 7y ago
  I've read of cases where people haven't been able to have a neat vegetable garden in their front yard, or xeriscape with a rock/cactus garden. Strikes me as crazy.
- prostoalex 7y ago
  > having substantial amounts of outside space might be pointless because you can't actually use it as you feel fit While front yards might fall onto that, backyards are pretty much off-limits to HOA, unless one does things that inconvenience neighbors, like obstruct their view or keep animals that are noisy.

ACow_Adonis 7y ago

We can suggest that isn't the reasonable question, going to extremes here, by the observation that we don't just connect all our houses by interlinking corridors to create the "biggest houses" possible (well, ok, some particularly ostentatious americans do pretty much that with mega-mansions, but I would argue that's pretty much obviously conspicuous consumption which is itself an interesting phenomenon). Put another way, in addition to the obvious considerations: cost, depreciation, heating, etc, shelter and design also provide the ability to bring things together into proximity, emphasise, demarcate and exclude. Design in houses is the same as in all things: the biggest car is not the best, the biggest desk is not the best, the biggest bookshelf is not the best, the biggest kitchen is not the best. Or like in computer design, packing things too tightly together is bad, but spacing them too far apart is as well. Perhaps there is a particular note that American culture has tended off to right of the bell curve in many things on the size scale: biggest food servings, bigger cars, big houses, etc. As the article notes, wealth clearly has SOMETHING to do with it, but there's also clearly something else going on, because people with a lot of money and from other cultures are fully capable of looking at some of those things and judging them as poor/bad.

onion2k 7y ago

... if you can afford a big old mansion in Central London you buy it and live in it. A very significant proportion of central London mansions are bought by foreign investors specifically not to live in. It's a common form of money laundering.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

It also matters where you live. You can buy a stupifyingly large house in small communities for very little money. Why is a $250,000 old mansion in a rural or non-trendy area more objectionable than a tiny closet in SF or NYC? I’d say it is actually less objectionable and more sane. My job doesn’t require me to live in a metro area anymore and my gf and I are looking at moving to a more rural area and salivating at the home prices. We could live in the huge house that the town’s founder lived in which is on the National Register of historic places for the same price we could buy a horrible small cookie cutter house in the city. I know a lot of HN readers can telecommute and work remotely, don’t be afraid to branch out!