Are bigger homes back?

One of the recession’s effects was not only a major pullback in home sales but also a downsizing of home square footage.  Now that we are back to economic growth and to a housing market rebound, has housing size also made a return? N.C. State University economist Mike Walden responds.

 “It actually has. … The last year we have data for, 2012, showed that the median home size in North Carolina was 2,300 feet — square feet, I should say. That’s up over the last two years. In fact, it’s up from a bottom of 2,100 square feet at the height of the recession. So we have seen home sizes rebound after actually having fallen during the recession.

“Now, another interesting point about this … is that the increase in home size is occurring at the same time that the average household has been getting smaller. So what’s happening here is that you have households that are smaller living in homes that are bigger. And of course this has all kinds of implications.  It has implications for builders. It has implications for the social network of households. But I think the bottom line here is this is another example of a very simple economic fact and that is that, generally, most people like more.