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The problem is the previous generation ruined the housing market by building rentals and McMansions. Typical sized families are most happy when they have 2400 -

The problem is the previous generation ruined the housing market by building rentals and McMansions. Typical sized families are most happy when they have 2400 - 2600 sq. feet of house, but most apartments on the market are less than 1,300 and most houses on the market are over 3,000.

Supermancho 6y ago
This is a side-effect of the wealth inequity (re: mass closing of small businesses) from almost 30 days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24126128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24126128 My sentiment has not changed.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Fluid_Mechanics 6y ago
  I tend to agree, the cultural observations usually gloss over the more impactful economic and geopolitical trends. Human behavior seems to be a reflection of these larger forces.
thrwn_frthr_awy 6y ago
> Most houses on the market are over 3,000 The average size of new single family homes in the built in 2019 in the U.S. is around 2,500 sq. feet.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  Averaged sized US home is 1760 sq ft. In my market it's smaller. Sub 1000 is common for detached. ref:https://www.homes.com/blog/2018/10/states-with-the-largest-and-smallest-homes/ https://www.homes.com/blog/2018/10/states-with-the-largest-a...
  - scarface74 6y ago
    The average size of a new home is 2623 square feet. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/mcmansion.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/mcmansion.asp
    - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      Your article seems to indicate that new homes are so large that they're inflating the (new home only) average. However, that's easier to do during a long period of reduced new housing starts.[1] What we have is a smaller number of super-homes, being built for a limited clientele. That doesn't translate into a larger home available to most Americans. I believe what best reflects our actual choices is our actual choices - which is average home size. [1]https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts
      - scarface74 6y ago
        There are other reasons that houses sizes are large for new homes. It costs a lot for a builder to get permits, buy the undeveloped land, etc. They want the most bang for their buck. https://www.curbed.com/2020/3/10/21168519/homes-for-sale-american-home-suburbs https://www.curbed.com/2020/3/10/21168519/homes-for-sale-ame... I live in the burbs of Atlanta. We purposefully got the smallest floor plan the builder had. We still ended up with 3100 square feet. At the time in 2016, the builder only required 5% down - $16,500. We even got some of that back at closing because an FHA loan was only 3.5%. We pay less than $2200/month all in. I don’t think many people on the west coast realize how relatively affordable houses are in the burbs of most major non west coast cities. In Atlanta, your average SaaS CRUD developer can easily afford that making low $100K which they can make with five or six years experience. On the other hand your average couple making $60K each - two teachers could afford that.
mangoling 6y ago
No, the problem is that Chinese dictatorship released a virus to the world that destroyed the easy to get jobs (waiter, cook, etc) for the high school grads, or the entry level market for the college grads. And these young folks have no jobs. And then they proceed to protest and riot against....police brutality. Not the Chinese government, or the multinationals that shipped their jobs to China.
- mangoling 6y ago
  For those that downvoted me, lookup the fact that when WHO went to China to investigate the virus, they never went to Wuhan! The Chinese government kept them in Beijing for weeks! If that’s not guilt by association for releasing the engineered virus, I don’t know what is
  - sulam 6y ago
    https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit-wuhan-china-jan-2020 https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit... You really should check those talking points before you repeat them.
    - mangoling 6y ago
      You should really check your article date before you post them. Yours: 1/20 Mine: 8/26 https://www.ft.com/content/f9dea077-66fb-4734-9d1d-076dc93568e1 https://www.ft.com/content/f9dea077-66fb-4734-9d1d-076dc9356...
      - sulam 6y ago
        So you're saying the WHO is lying about going to Wuhan?
      - matchbok 6y ago
        Dude, stop trying to spread conspiracy theories. This is HN, not some fox news/4chan shithole.
bobthepanda 6y ago
Three bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room are perfectly achievable with less than 2400 sq ft. American homes are much larger than those in Europe and it's not as if Europeans are all living in filthy overcrowded slums. Average home size and home size per person in a household is much larger in the US than in other countries: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house. Not saying we should all live in Hong Kong coffin homes but even with, say, Germany the discrepancy is quite noticeable.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  Indeed, just purchased a house in the UK in a relatively cheap area (rural Scotland) and it works out to about 1300 sq ft of house, excluding garden. Given the current market a first time buyer would be expected to put in around $60K deposit as mortgages have dried up for higher LTVs. In other words, an 18 year old would have to save $5K a year for 12 years simply to have the deposit. The national average for house prices is not too different from this scenario.
moksly 6y ago
Isn’t the main problem with the housing market that loans became so easy to obtain that prices increases 500% over 30 years? My parents had a nice suburban house, that went from 300,000 Danish KR to a little over 3 million in the years they owned it. Which is about the maximum my generation can secure in loans on regular jobs. There is now way it’ll increase to 18million though.
- asdff 6y ago
  Not sure about denmark, but California is not building enough homes which is why prices are so high. The few homes available are all going to the slivers of the economy that can afford to spend $700k on a rotting 800 sqft bungalow without a foundation ordered from the Sears catalog in 1946.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    Interesting, looks like Sears et al did sell houses thru 1942: http://www.sears-homes.com/2012/11/yes-virginia-sears-homes-were-built.html http://www.sears-homes.com/2012/11/yes-virginia-sears-homes-...
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
I have a five bedroom house built in 1930 that is only 1300sqft. You do not need McMansion sizes to house a lot of people.

Supermancho 6y ago

This is a side-effect of the wealth inequity (re: mass closing of small businesses) from almost 30 days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24126128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24126128 My sentiment has not changed.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Fluid_Mechanics 6y ago
I tend to agree, the cultural observations usually gloss over the more impactful economic and geopolitical trends. Human behavior seems to be a reflection of these larger forces.

thrwn_frthr_awy 6y ago

> Most houses on the market are over 3,000 The average size of new single family homes in the built in 2019 in the U.S. is around 2,500 sq. feet.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Averaged sized US home is 1760 sq ft. In my market it's smaller. Sub 1000 is common for detached. ref:https://www.homes.com/blog/2018/10/states-with-the-largest-and-smallest-homes/ https://www.homes.com/blog/2018/10/states-with-the-largest-a...
- scarface74 6y ago
  The average size of a new home is 2623 square feet. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/mcmansion.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/mcmansion.asp
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    Your article seems to indicate that new homes are so large that they're inflating the (new home only) average. However, that's easier to do during a long period of reduced new housing starts.[1] What we have is a smaller number of super-homes, being built for a limited clientele. That doesn't translate into a larger home available to most Americans. I believe what best reflects our actual choices is our actual choices - which is average home size. [1]https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts
    - scarface74 6y ago
      There are other reasons that houses sizes are large for new homes. It costs a lot for a builder to get permits, buy the undeveloped land, etc. They want the most bang for their buck. https://www.curbed.com/2020/3/10/21168519/homes-for-sale-american-home-suburbs https://www.curbed.com/2020/3/10/21168519/homes-for-sale-ame... I live in the burbs of Atlanta. We purposefully got the smallest floor plan the builder had. We still ended up with 3100 square feet. At the time in 2016, the builder only required 5% down - $16,500. We even got some of that back at closing because an FHA loan was only 3.5%. We pay less than $2200/month all in. I don’t think many people on the west coast realize how relatively affordable houses are in the burbs of most major non west coast cities. In Atlanta, your average SaaS CRUD developer can easily afford that making low $100K which they can make with five or six years experience. On the other hand your average couple making $60K each - two teachers could afford that.

mangoling 6y ago

No, the problem is that Chinese dictatorship released a virus to the world that destroyed the easy to get jobs (waiter, cook, etc) for the high school grads, or the entry level market for the college grads. And these young folks have no jobs. And then they proceed to protest and riot against....police brutality. Not the Chinese government, or the multinationals that shipped their jobs to China.

mangoling 6y ago
For those that downvoted me, lookup the fact that when WHO went to China to investigate the virus, they never went to Wuhan! The Chinese government kept them in Beijing for weeks! If that’s not guilt by association for releasing the engineered virus, I don’t know what is
- sulam 6y ago
  https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit-wuhan-china-jan-2020 https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit... You really should check those talking points before you repeat them.
  - mangoling 6y ago
    You should really check your article date before you post them. Yours: 1/20 Mine: 8/26 https://www.ft.com/content/f9dea077-66fb-4734-9d1d-076dc93568e1 https://www.ft.com/content/f9dea077-66fb-4734-9d1d-076dc9356...
    - sulam 6y ago
      So you're saying the WHO is lying about going to Wuhan?
    - matchbok 6y ago
      Dude, stop trying to spread conspiracy theories. This is HN, not some fox news/4chan shithole.

bobthepanda 6y ago

Three bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room are perfectly achievable with less than 2400 sq ft. American homes are much larger than those in Europe and it's not as if Europeans are all living in filthy overcrowded slums. Average home size and home size per person in a household is much larger in the US than in other countries: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house. Not saying we should all live in Hong Kong coffin homes but even with, say, Germany the discrepancy is quite noticeable.

ricardo81 6y ago
Indeed, just purchased a house in the UK in a relatively cheap area (rural Scotland) and it works out to about 1300 sq ft of house, excluding garden. Given the current market a first time buyer would be expected to put in around $60K deposit as mortgages have dried up for higher LTVs. In other words, an 18 year old would have to save $5K a year for 12 years simply to have the deposit. The national average for house prices is not too different from this scenario.

moksly 6y ago

Isn’t the main problem with the housing market that loans became so easy to obtain that prices increases 500% over 30 years? My parents had a nice suburban house, that went from 300,000 Danish KR to a little over 3 million in the years they owned it. Which is about the maximum my generation can secure in loans on regular jobs. There is now way it’ll increase to 18million though.

asdff 6y ago
Not sure about denmark, but California is not building enough homes which is why prices are so high. The few homes available are all going to the slivers of the economy that can afford to spend $700k on a rotting 800 sqft bungalow without a foundation ordered from the Sears catalog in 1946.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Interesting, looks like Sears et al did sell houses thru 1942: http://www.sears-homes.com/2012/11/yes-virginia-sears-homes-were-built.html http://www.sears-homes.com/2012/11/yes-virginia-sears-homes-...

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

I have a five bedroom house built in 1930 that is only 1300sqft. You do not need McMansion sizes to house a lot of people.