![]() While I can’t completely answer this question without knowing a given person’s or family’s individual needs, nor can I give you an exact numeric value what I would suggest is turning your attention more to the way the square footage is assembled within the home. What this means is this family used a very small amount of the space that they paid for through their mortgage or home equity line of credit every month, and they are definitely not alone. Instead, they used the common areas the most, typical of most families around the world, and the extra space remained unused. While the house was quite large, they did not appear to be basking in the glory of space. We don’t need a 2000 square foot floor plan for that.Īnd so in truth, over the course of the years 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, this particular family was not all that spread out. The rest, they were plopped down on the couch watching the boob tube or on the computer. The large majority of the time, this family spent their waking hours congregating around areas of food preparation and consumption. Like typical living and breathing human beings capable of emotion, we find that most people crave social interaction with other humans. Clearly, the formal dining room got almost no use, and the living room saw very little activity, like the porch. The study found that 68% of the family’s time was largely spent in the kitchen/nook as well as the family room, typically near the television. While this represents only a single family, its findings probably represent the common pattern in many American households. The house’s total square footage appears to be large and spaced out with a place for a separate living and formal dining room, as well as space for a piano, a laundry room, and a huge front porch. The graphic of the floor plan above, published by the University, depicts one such family and where they spend time within their home. A part of this study monitored and collected data on where in the home people spend the majority of their time. ![]() The Center on Everyday Lives of Families at the University of California put together an amazing look at how we typically use all that space (and stuff) in our homes. The study examined 32 middle-class families over the course of four years - 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively. We only tend to use a small amount of our living space. With the average American home’s dramatic increase in space, one might assume that we Americans now have the luxury of putting more of our real estate to good use, allowing us to enjoy more of our home’s features and bask in the glory of large dining rooms, fancy living and “sitting areas,” separate studies (read: “libraries”) and yet another room for our televisions and time-grabbing entertainment devices – video game consoles, anyone?īut, according to a study published in the Wall Street Journal several years ago, that assumption would be flat wrong. Where we spend the most time in our homes You might ask, so how big of a building does my house need be? I cannot possibly answer that question for you, but taking a more realistic look at how your family truly operates might help you better determine the right size. ![]() What this means: we are experiencing a phenomenon as it relates to our country’s residential real estate where our homes are getting larger while our households are getting smaller.īut, what if I told you that we don’t actually use all this additional space that happens to be draining a lot of your money every month, and there’s a study that backs that claim up? Perhaps more interesting is the average household size – meaning, the number of people living in the home – has actually decreased from 3.01 persons per household 40 years ago to 2.54 today. The median footage of new homes is now 2,687 square feet, which is an increase of nearly 1,000 square feet in the last four decades. We now find that the average home is larger than ever – 2,687 square feet, and the estimated footage per person has doubled in that time.Īnd then there is my wife and me who have been living in a small, 200 square foot Airstream since 2016 and travel the country for a living. How big of a house do I need? Taking a look at the increase in the average square footage of homes in the United States over the last 40 years should seriously test even the most intestinally-formidable person’s gag reflex. ![]()
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