Another old house in my beautiful neighborhood is getting knocked down. It is a house kiddy-corner from our apartment building and granted, it was on the market for a very long time and then for rent for an even longer time. It is not beautiful, not in great shape. But it is an old house on an over-sized lot with a great yard and its own character. And like many other homes turned construction sites within blocks, a Starter Castle will surely be built up in its place. With lots of bathrooms, more bedrooms and no trace of Earth on the lot.
This McMansioning of America cannot be surprising to anyone who owns a home, is buying a home or just walks past homes in their 'hood. A recent report citing one in five homes now have four bedrooms and 2.5 baths is up from a one in six ratio in 1990. This trend toward bigger home size doesn't match up with the trend toward shrinking family size. It is, however, right on track with our need for more expansive space to fit all our stuff, no matter how much greenspace it means we chop away or how big our environmental footprint is on our cities, counties or country.
All this construction comes at a price (and not just environmental). The average home price has risen 40% since 1990, hitting $167,500. I almost choked on my latte when I read this since our family's hunt for even a crappy fixer-upper keeps landing us at doorsteps with at least a $400,000 price tag. While I loved our own Crank Mama's ode to small spaces and while I can go on and on and freaking on about the horrific crapification of monstrous new builds in our neighborhood, I know that when we are finally ready to move out of our tiny apartment (noooo, not bitter about that at all), I will have every home-office/playroom/kid's bathroom/guest space/art studio/fitness room reason in the world to hit all the 4 BR/2.5 BA open houses I can find.
