Goodbye McMansions and hello smaller homes?
National home builders like KB Home appeared near death just a few months ago.
Housing starts were at historic lows, with no end to the free-fall in site.
But the latest housing figures show a modest rebound in new home sales – and point to an emerging new trend as well.
Los Angeles-based KB is reporting success with a new, smaller home model that is the company’s answer to the flood of foreclosed homes that have provided dirt-cheap alternatives for prospective buyers.
With help from its new Open Series blueprint, KB reported a 26 percent increase in new home orders during the first quarter. It was the first year-over-year sales increase for the beleaguered builder in more than three years.
It appears the era of the McMansion is coming to an abrupt end, and with a vengeance at that.
A recent story in USA Today details the trend, pointing to dramatically shrinking home sizes and homeowners deliberately choosing more frugal, lower cost materials when renovating.
One key fact: After doubling in size since 1960, new homes under construction shrank during the fourth quarter by nearly 300 square feet, to 2,343 square feet.
By New England standards, that still sound like a lot of folks are still living large. My wife and I just completed a two-story addition to our Natick fixer-upper that added maybe 700 to 800 square feet to our 1,100 square foot home – and that feels big to us.
I guess it’s all relative. And I am not so sure we won’t be seeing an uptick again in home sizes once the economy recovers.
But it seems like at least one healthy trend to emerge from all the housing market pain we have been enduring.
