Hamartia Antidote
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Houses Are Still Big. Prices Are Much Bigger.
New U.S. homes sold in 2022 were slightly smaller than those sold a decade earlier. But the prices have skyrocketed.
Until the 1960s, a typical single-family home built in the United States measured about 1,500 square feet. By the turn of the 21st century, the median home size was topping 2,000 square feet, according to the Census Bureau. The mortgage crisis of the early 2000s did little to change the drive toward excess, so even though McMansions are generally out of fashion these days, the size of new homes sold over the past decade has shrunk only slightly, according to a new study by LendingTree.
By the end of 2022, the average new U.S. single-family home sold measured 2,559 square feet, according to the study, a mere 1 percent smaller than in 2012. But despite the slight shrinkage, the price per square foot nearly doubled during that period, to about $168 per square foot.
As always, there were regional variations. In 2022, the largest new homes were sold in the Northeast, filling out an average of 2,756 square feet — 8 percent larger than a decade before. This was by far the largest change in size among all regions. The only other region where new homes were larger than they were a decade ago was the West, where they grew by 1.6 percent. Homes in this region now average 2,477 square feet, with the highest cost per square foot in the country.
In the South, new homes sold in 2022 averaged 2,608 square feet, about 3 percent smaller than they were a decade ago, and second in size behind Northeastern homes. The smallest homes were sold in the Midwest, averaging 2,397 square feet, 2 percent smaller than a decade earlier.
