New data released by the Census Bureau show the construction industry is recovering from the steep declines of the past few years with houses that have more bedrooms and more square footage.
In all, 483,000 single-family homes were completed in 2012, the Census Bureau reports, with a median size of 2306 sq. ft., the highest ever. A decade ago, the median size was 2114 sq. ft. Twenty years ago, it was 1920 sq. ft. In analyzing the numbers, The New York Times called the trend the return of McMansions.
The number of houses with two or fewer bedrooms has remained fairly constant over the past decade, at something more than 10%, but the number of houses with four or more bedrooms climbed to 41% in 2012, the highest ever, while 46% had three bedrooms. Twenty years ago, the number of houses with four or more bedrooms was 29%.
Other census findings:
- Almost all new houses have air conditioning, 432,000 of the 483,000 built.
- Nearly a third of all new single-family houses have three or more bathrooms, and only 34,000, or 7%, had one and a half baths or less.
- Full or partial basements accounted for 142,000 houses (29%), 78,000 had crawlspaces, and 263,000 were built on slabs or some other type of foundation.
- Most new houses – 285,000 in all – are heated with gas. Electricity heats 189,000 houses built in 2012, while oil heats just 2000, less than 1% of the total.
- Vinyl siding was the principal type of wall cladding for 110,000 houses – 10 times the number where wood is the primary wall cladding.
- The average sales price of a new, single-family house was $292,000, compared with $267,900 the previous year.
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"the return of the McMansion" is probably right on the mark.
It's just Pulte/KB/TollBros using their same old tricks to draw in unsuspecting homebuyers. Quantity over quality.
At least when they were cranking them out before it was much easier to find semi-competent labor. I can't imagine what the results are in this market of near extinct skilled tradespeople.
Just remember... these 'national homebuilder' guys with their profit-hungry-cost-cutting-construction are the reason we continue to get pelted with new and ridiculous codes.
Worse yet, they put an imbalance in the cost of construction and remodeling by presenting their sub-par homes as the baseline price. It's just that much more difficult to make a decent wage in construction when your competition is the Walmart of Houses.
Just sayin'....