Trophy houses no more? For many years in our real estate careers here, we have heard: “The house is too small, it is not big enough”. Two years ago for the first time ever we were told the house was “too big”!! Times are changing. After thinking this over and reading up on this oncoming trend, here are our thoughts and some facts that we learned:
According to the US Census, the average square footage of a new home has dropped for the first time since the early 1980’s. Looking at the stats, the average home size of 2,215 sf is still double the size of an average new home in 1960 at 1,138 sf .
Home sizes, especially second homes, increased with the baby boomers and flourishing pocketbooks. The need and wish to accommodate the entire family, the desire for more space and luxuries such as media and exercise rooms, wine cellars and gourmet kitchens propelled home sizes into new dimensions. Do we really use or need all of this?
The downturn in the economy, life style changes, heightened awareness of our carbon footprint, focus on green building and the desire for a simpler life has caused the lust for larger homes to dwindle. Cost also factors into this with the expense of maintaining, cleaning, and heating and cooling these larger properties. People want to spend more time with their families and friends instead of maintaining property.
Nationwide, homeowners are updating their existing homes to meet their needs instead of buying bigger, a trend we are seeing on Nantucket as well. Now we are hearing “we want to downsize”!