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As a follow up to the thread regarding the McMansion Hell blog and Wake County...
I downloaded the real estate data and ran some numbers from the Wake Co. website. (Okay... yes, I'm a geek). I thought the numbers might be interesting to see...
Single Family homes in Wake Co. : 300,767
Less than 2,000 sq. feet: 151,870
Greater or equal to 2,000 sq.ft.: 148,897
Greater or equal to 3,000 sq.ft.: 53,547
Greater or equal to 3,500 sq.ft.: 28,153
Greater or equal to 4,000 sq.ft.: 14,959
Greater or equal to 5,000 sq.ft.: 4,846
So, by many definitions, a "McMansion" is a house of 3,000 sq. ft. or more. There's also the sentiment that to truly be considered a McMansion, it needs to sit on a disproportionately small lot. So, for the 53,547 homes in the county that fit that profile:
13,087 are on a lot less than or equal to 0.25 acre
9.076 are on a lot between 0.25 and 0.33 acre
10,458 are on a lot between 0.33 and 0.50 acre
11,539 are on a lot between 0.50 and 1.00 acre
9,387 are on a lot larger than 1.00 acre.
Wow, I'm surprised there are so many 3,000+ sq. ft. homes on 1/4 acre or less. They must all be right around 3,000 sq. ft., right? Well, not exactly...
While 8,294 of those 13,087 are between 3,000 and 3,500 sq. ft.,
2,927 are between 3,500 and 4,000 sq. ft.,
1,588 are between 4,000 and 5,000 sq. ft., and remarkably,
278 are over 5,000 sq. ft. and sit on less than 1/4 of an acre.
So, where the heck are these 278 homes?
148 are in Cary
74 are in Raleigh
20 are in Apex
17 are in Wake Forest
9 in Morrisville
5 in Holly Springs
4 in Rolesville
1 in Unincorporated Wake Co.
This was just a little analysis that I wanted to perform, in order to satisfy my own curiosity. Hopefully it's a bit interesting to the rest of you as well. I'm sure none of this is too surprising to the real estate guys and gals here.
I could probably do a bit more slicing and dicing by request, if anyone's interested.
I live in a small neighborhood filled with custom homes. The lots range in size from 1/4 acre to almost an acre (there are very few of these and they tend to be larger only because the parcel stretched out far in the back... all of them are pretty much the same size across... the larger ones are just deeper.
I think there might be one house out here under/close to 3k sq ft.
The rest are over 3k sq feet. I'd say most, if they've finished off an attic or basement, are safely over 4k sq ft. A few are over 5k, but that's not really the norm.
Now, if you knew nothing about McMansions and your only criteria was "big house, smaller lot" you'd say my whole neighborhood qualifies.
But, it's the norm for the neighborhood, so does it really?
We don't have any neighborhoods to either side of ours. We have one across the street, but houses are a similar ratio of size to lot size over there, and it's tract.
Eh. I am unbothered. We have a nice house and we have enough lot. I might like a larger back yard, but that's just because we have a large front yard and I wish the builder had placed the house differently on this lot (we bought resale).
If snarky blogger wants to put my house in there, let her. She'll hear from me, though. It's not my fault she grew up unable to live in a large home... I mean, how many of us did grow up living in large houses? As was mentioned by Gearcrasher, the average size home in 1970 was 1400 sq ft. I think the biggest house I lived in growing up was around 2.5k, give or take. We thought it was big, but we were kids and all stuff seems large to kids.
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"Normal" in your words means larger than 80% of homes in Wake County. 3000 sqf is a big house. ).
A 3000 sq ft house is not considered a mansion let alone a McMansion, which is a very large ostentatious house.
Just by sight you can tell none of the houses people are bickering about on the other thread are smaller than 4000 sq feet, most are probably closer to 5000.
Average American home size in 1970 was 1400 sq ft.
Crazy, ain't it?! When did we start craving more and more space? I wonder if there will ever come a time when people grow tired of these big houses and start desiring are return to more modest homes?
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