Quick ? Regarding Average Home Size Today Vs. 1970 (Spurred by Thom Hartmann)

[ihavenobias]

The other day while listening to a great podcast of the show, Thom said something about how the average house in 1970 (I *think* it was 1970) had something like 6.7 rooms, compared with 7.1 rooms today.

I'm going from memory, so those numbers might be slightly different, but you get the idea. At any rate, Thom's point was that it's a myth that most people bought McMansion's they couldn't afford, etc. I'm sure that's generally true, but I wanted to dig up more information on the topic and I found this:

http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/us-home-size.html

"...The Question:

What is the average home size in the U.S.?
The Answer:

According to the National Association of Home Builders, the average home size in the United States was 2,330 square feet in 2004, up from 1,400 square feet in 1970..."

Now, assuming these numbers are correct (and who knows if stopping in 2004 makes a big difference), it *does* seem like home sizes are significantly different on average than they were in 1970. So the real question is how much is this skewed by the rich and mega-rich, etc.? Obviously "average" can be abused and I don't want to make any assumptions until I get more information. Does anyone have any reliable sources/information on this topic that accounts for skewed numbers?

EDIT: I didn't realize that there was |a popular thread on McMansions] before I posted this.

[thereismore]

1. median is needed. Who knows what average means. nt

[bertman]

2. Don't need no median calculations. I can just look around and tell you those stats

look right.

You can do it too. Just drive around to the older neighborhoods circa '50's, '60's then drive around the new neighborhoods. It's anecdotal, but it's a good way to tell.

[ihavenobias]

5. Sure, but it'd be nice to have some credible numbers to give a better idea.

And again, to know how some numbers can be manipulated/distorted.

[ContinentalOp]

3. Square footage makes more sense than room count.

A modern master bedroom and master bathroom for example may be double the size of one from the 70s.

[ThomWV]

4. Maybe you're looking at the wrong side of the equation - in fact I think you are.

Let me remind you about housing in 1970. That was just the end of the era of building very small houses for very fast sale primarily to first time buying Vets. This country was plastered with the little shit box 'starter homes' that were far smaller than the older homes they displaced. There were entire communities of very small two and three bedroom homes, one bath, a living room and an eat-in kitchen - they couldn't build them fast enough. I think it was the hundreds of thousands of those matchboxes that were built between about 1948 and the late 60's that skewed the 1970 average size to something lower than it probably was even just prior to the second world war. Like the tens of thousands of "Craftsman" homes that were delivered by train, with instructions throughout the '20s and even sold in the '30s - even the smallest of which was considerably larger than the typical offering in Levettown.

[madrchsod]

6. the houses in my 4 sq block neigborhood were built in the late 60 and early 70`s

range from 1400 to 2000 sq feet if one counts the basements. my slab house was built in 73 and has 1460 livable sq feet. right now homes in my hood are going for a 80-120000. my parents built the house for 32 thousand and others were around 40,000.