By John Voket
Last year, your RIS Consumer Confidant wrote about an anticipated glut of so-called McMansions, or giant 5,000-plus-square-foot homes that were a major by-product of the mid- to late-1990s housing boom. So it was interesting to run across a recent post from Vanessa Pereira, an Interior Design Consultant at Mid-Atlantic Builders Rockville, MD (midatlanticbuilders.com) about trending home sizes.
Pereira reports that recent national surveys along with 2010 census data confirm there are rapid changes happening throughout the nation, with many homebuyers opting for smaller, more efficient and easy to maintain homes.
She says that architectural footprints of new homes are shrinking, and builders are squeezing the most out of every inch of usable square footage.
That means two-story spaces are now viewed as wasted areas, an open family room can be used for an extra bedroom, and two-story foyers are now being used for extra closet space. In fact, Pereira says that more than half of the buyers she helps end up customizing floor plans using open spaces to create a bigger master bedrooms, more storage spaces or extra bathrooms.
Speaking of extra bathrooms, Pereira says the days of those big Jacuzzi tubs are over. Today, many builders are opting for bigger showers with “spa-like” features.
Although many buyers are hanging onto their Jacuzzi tubs for reasons such as perceived resale value, fewer and fewer buyers are spending the extra money to add massage jets to the tubs, according to Pereira. Younger buyers are now opting for more lifestyle-related options such as body jets, rain showerheads and steam showers.
Even the formal living and dining areas are being replaced by or converted to big, open family rooms.
Pereira says keeping with the trend of functionality, homebuyers now understand that they spend most of their time in their kitchen and family room. So most buyers want to use the living room for other purposes, such as a guest area or other multifunctional area, and keep their kitchen open to the family room.