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I guess what I find interesting about"Mcmansions" and the whole trend of getting bigger and bigger is that if you look at historic trends of American contentment, the highest level of contentment was in 1957. Back then, the average American home was 700 Square feet. The avg family had one car, one TV set, one radio, and one bathroom. The average family had between 2-4 kids per household.
As of now, the average family has a 3,000 sq foot house, at least 2-3 vehicles, and at least 2 TV sets. I'd wager that most have at least 3. The kicker is that the avg family has less children than in 1957 when the square footage of the avg home was 1/3rd the size of today's homes. Yet the level of contentment has gotten worse and worse over time, which conveniently correlates with the escalation in home size.
If you ask me or any of my friends what kind of home we want, we want smaller, more energy efficient, more affordable homes. My guess is that the whole Mcmansion thing will start to disappear sooner or later. These homes only serve one purpose, which is for people from other more expensive states to move to a less expensive one, hedge their out of state equity against their new state, and therefor get a larger house for seemingly less money.
But the thing is that now that the bust is now in full swing, states like NY, FL, OH, PA, WA, CA, AZ, and CO are all losing home values at an increasingly rapid pitch. At the same time, the prices in places like NC are going up . This delta is being closed quickly. As soon as it does, then these Mcmansions will simply be large, overpriced, difficult to heat and cool boxes. In fact, with rising energy costs, I'd wager that people will be wanting to get out of these homes at some point.
Well, we're spending equal time in our 140 year old small NJ home and our brand new big home in the triangle and I can tell you that we spend way more in heating and cooling in NJ. Water is also more expensive and we have to pay even more to get rid of it in a separate municipal water/sewer charge. Taxes are much higher and so is cable and food. To add insult to injury, our auto insurance was 5k more in NJ. Now if I could find a buyer, I could enjoy all the new space.
Historic Oakwood.
Not Craftsman Bungalows, but I just had to...
Absolutely more my style and liking, just needs a garage for the car!
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