Less money, less house: How market forces are reshaping the American home
- The Washington Post
- Mar 28, 2024
- 1 min read
Updated: Jul 10, 2024
The new American home is shrinking.
After years of prioritizing large homes, the nation’s biggest and most powerful home builders are finally building more smaller ones, driving a shift toward more affordable housing.
The boom in smaller construction has cut median new-home sizes by 4 percent in the past year, to 2,179 square feet, census data shows, the lowest reading since 2010. That’s helped bring down overall costs and contributed to a 6 percent dip in new-home prices in the same period.
Altogether, this wave of new construction promises a crucial first step toward addressing a critical shortage of starter homes that has sidelined first-time home buyers and contributed to inflation.
The stand-alone houses she toured were well beyond her $450,000 budget. Cheshire looked for six weeks, was outbid twice and eventually landed a newly constructed townhouse for $408,000.
They began looking again — on a smaller scale. Last month, they closed on a home that’s about 25 percent smaller, with three bedrooms instead of four. And, at $273,000, it was under budget.
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