Do most Americans live in large, comfortable, inexpensive houses?

33 comments

1. Not during the current housing crisis

2. People in other countries only say this kind of thing because we have space here. Some people have big houses sure. Some have small ones. Some people live in apartments or condos. It varies.

3. I don’t know about “large” and “inexpensive”, but many people do prefer living in rowhouses, townhouses, or single family homes of some kind (even if it is a smaller mobile home).

   Varying statistics say between 16-20% of the population live in apartments : I really expected it to be higher honestly.

4. Is 800k inexpensive?. You must be thinking maybe out in the sticks. I had a gf in Berlin, Germany. Rents there were cheaper by far than where I live. I dont live in a big city either.

5. Homes vary in size and worth, but home ownership peaked at 69 percent in 2004 and then dropped to 63.5 by 2016. Since then it has risen to 64.8 according to the U.S. Census Bureau

6. There is a general population migration from small towns to bigger cities, where the cost of living (including real estate) is higher and living spaces are smaller.

7. There are inexpensive houses, at least in decades past. They weren’t necessarily large unless you were way out in the sticks. What is “comfortable” is subjective.

   The median home price in my county is something like 400k. There’s lots of foreign investors and rich coastal people coming in and buying houses for cash tens of thousands over the listed price. There’s also a severe housing shortage not just in my county but throughout central Indiana. Even before COVID hit, we were set to build fewer homes in the 2010-2020 decade than in any previous decade since like the 1940s.

8. Depends where you live. The exact same house will vary greatly in price depending on where you put it. Generally speaking, the further you get from major metropolitan areas and major highways, the less expensive. My wife and I bought a new construction home. The builder built the same model about 30 minutes east of of us in an area that people love because it’s easy to commute into the city. The house sold for $300,000 more than ours. That’s why there’s a saying in real estate, “location, location, location.”

9. Large, comfortable, inexpensive.

   Large and comfortable? Sure. Many do.

   Comfortable and inexpensive? Also happens, often in smaller towns

   All three at the same time? No.

10. Depends on where.

    I consider mine to be “big and inexpensive.”

    But my house in NYC would be in the millions; likewise in rural North Dakota it would be way cheaper than what I paid.

    But the norm outside of major metro areas is living in a suburb/single family home which is probably what you are talking about.

11. Define inexpensive.

12. Nope, the wife and i cant even afford a house, rent is way too expensive here in FL. We’re still in a 2 bed 2 bath 1,000sqft apartment.

13. No usually. You could have all 3, but you’d have to go to a very rural or depressed area. Big and comfortable is easy to find, but it won’t be inexpensive.
    I live in a medium sized house in a major city that wasn’t too expensive. The downside is I step over hypodermic needles every time I leave the house.

14. I don’t know what you want us to do with 3 relative terms…

    You can easily Google average square footage and prices (and the conversion). We have no idea what is “large” where you are. The average here is just “normal” to us. Youd have to tell us if it’s large.

15. The average house size in the US is around 2500sqft. We don’t really consider that large, it’s pretty averge/medium.

    As for inexpensive, prices vary wildly based on location, mainly due to the value of the land. An acre in Atherton, CA is going to run you quite a bit more than an acre in Lincoln, NE. However, salaries due to scale with cost of living.

16. No. It’s not unusual to live in a large, comfortable house, but a large, comfortable house is only inexpensive in the less populated parts of the country, usually where there aren’t as many jobs or the jobs don’t pay as well.

    And while I don’t have numbers on how many people live in what types of housing, apartments and other types of housing that fit multiple families are very common, as are small houses.

17. The only real answer is a question. Compared to what?

18. Large, comfortable, inexpensive is very subjective.

19. You can pick two, and this goes for most moderately-densely populated parts of the country. I’m sure it’s possible to find a large, comfortable, inexpensive house out in the sticks but “most” people (some 80%) live within a major urban area. Inexpensive is also relative; a cheap house around here would likely be extremely expensive compared to a house an equivalent size in the Twin Tiers of New York/Pennsylvania (Ithaca excluded).

20. Compared to other countries, yes, without question. Outside of our major cities, a typical house (and the amount of land it sits on) is pretty considerable compared to just about anything you’re going to find in Europe apart from the insanely wealthy.

21. Compared to where? We’re currently in a housing affordability crisis. People trying to buy their first home or move to a new one are facing abnormally high spikes in costs.

    But yeah our average house is on the large side compared to most other places. You can easily find statistics on how many people own, average size, lot size, etc.

22. If they live in a rural area? Yeah probably. If they live within 50 miles of a major metropolitan area? No, probably not

23. In 1973, the average house size was 1,660 sq feet (154 square meters).

    In 2021, the average house was roughly 2,200 sq feet (204 square meters).

    In 2021 the median sales price for a home was $350,000. The median household income was about $73,000 nationwide.

    In short, our houses are large but I wouldn’t call them “inexpensive” relative to the income of most families. The problem is that often times people buy more house than they can comfortably afford and end up going in debt to purchase other necessities. That said, the numbers I gave you were nationwide averages, in places like California (most of the state), New York, Miami, Seattle, and Washington DC, housing can be extremely expensive and unaffordable to people who even make a $100K yearly salary.

24. My house is only about 800 square feet, worth about $220,000 currently, but across the street from affluent Detroit northern suburbs. I could have something bigger but I live alone and like having spare money to save and blow on stupid shit. In said affluent suburbs, new owners buy houses like mine and either knock them down or renovate to rebuild a McMansion monstrosity. Inexpensive is relative I suppose. I’d never pay 500k to live in my area, but others will.

25. We bought a 100 year old house about a decade ago. It’s 2300 square feet and cost us about 77K. It’s comfortable for us because we don’t need things like in-home theater systems, or a swimming pool out back, or 3 stories worth of stairs to run up and down.

26. Depends very much on location. A big, comfy house in Pasadena, California would be 10 times as expensive (and completely out of reach for all but the wealthiest folks) as the same house in a nice Ohio suburb.

27. No some of us live in small expensive apartments

28. My house was relatively inexpensive (there are certainly less-expensive homes out there, but it’s by no means at the higher end of home values; it’s solidly mid-range for my area). It’s comfortable in that it’s in good repair, has decent insulation, the roof and windows don’t leak, and all the appliances work as intended, but it doesn’t have any high-end finishes. But it’s not large. It’s a single-story ranch house with several rooms, but they’re all fairly small. It’s perfect for my husband and me, but if we had even one child it would feel a bit cramped. We do have a large yard, and no neighbors, so we’ve got wide-open space outdoors.

    Our situation is not unique *for our area.* It would be unheard of in some parts of the country.

29. By international standards our houses are large and comfortable.

    The cost of those homes is relative to the neighborhood you’re talking about. An expensive home in an Arkansas suburb will seem downright cheap to someone living in NYC or San Francisco.

30. No.

31. Most Americans live about how they want to, be it an apartment, single family home or a place in the country.

32. Relative to western Europe or Japan, American houses are *generally* larger and less expensive. But of course there are exceptions in both directions. Some US cities are very expensive.

33. I’d note that “Large, comfortable, and inexpensive” are all relative terms. What I’d consider to be large, comfortable, and inexpensive may not be what my neighbor considers to be large, comfortable, and inexpensive, or what you consider to be large, comfortable, and inexpensive.

    Somewhere around 2/3 of Americans live in homes that they (or a family member) own, rather than rent.

    Costs vary immensely by location. Availability of large homes varies immensely by location.

    In the most desirable parts of a large city, homes are often small and very expensive. In desirable resort areas, homes are often large and very expensive. In rural areas where land is cheap, homes are much less expensive, and are highly variable in size.

    Personally– I live in a suburb of a small city. I own my home. It is currently worth between $400,000 and $500,000, but that number has been consistently rising for the past several years. My home was built about 50 years ago. My home is on about 1/3 of an acre, or 1400 square meters of land that I own. My home is about 2200 square feet, or ~200 square meters of finished indoor living space.