Dive Brief:
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At an average size of 2,700-plus square feet, new homes today are 57% bigger than those built four decades ago, but whether occupants would prefer to upsize or downsize depends in large part on their life stage and the size of their current home, according to Trulia, which asked 2,000 U.S. residents whether, if given the chance to move, they’d pick a home that’s smaller, larger or equivalent to their current residence.
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Six in 10 occupants of homes over 2,000 square feet said they would pick a smaller home (60.6%) as compared to four in 10 (39.4%) who said they would upsize if they moved this year. Meanwhile, roughly one-third (32%) would stay in a home of the same size.
- Age was a factor. Of respondents ages 55 and older, more said they would downsize (36%) than would pick a larger home (23%) whereas a greater share of those between the ages of 18 and 34 would prefer a larger home (46%).
Dive Insight:
The Trulia survey, conducted by Harris Poll, noted that the larger the home, the more likely its current occupants would be to chose to move into a smaller property. For example, 70.3% of Americans living in the largest class of homes included in the survey — more than 3,200 square feet — would downsize compared to 52.1% of those living in homes between 2,100 square feet and 2,600 square feet.
Homes in the U.S. trended larger during and after the recession as builders focused on the upper end of the market because those buyers were more likely to meet the tighter mortgage lending standards.
But there are now signs that the trend may be reversing, with a recent report by the National Association of Home Builders finding that the average square footage for new single-family homes fell to 2,661 square feet in the fourth quarter of 2016 from 2,694 square feet a year earlier.
It comes as homebuilders shift their focus toward the lower-priced, entry-level segment of the market to match pent-up demand among younger, first-time buyers.
The trend was further underlined by Census Bureau Survey of Construction figures released in November that showed the number of U.S. home starts priced at $1 million or more fell 41.6% year-over-year to 1,762 in 2015.
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