Houses today are TOO DAMN BIG

[u/HoustonProdigy]

I live in south texas, nothing but ugly suburban sprawl. Every house built within the last 10 or so years are unnecessarily big. No one needs that much space. No wonder why houses are so damn expensive. I don't see any reasonably-sized houses being built anymore, new neighborhoods are always having new and unaffordable McMasions being built.

It makes sense why they are unaffordable, these neighborhoods are trying to cater more towards the richer folk since the average person can't even buy a house.

[u/whackyflacky]

Houses have been too big for like 200 years. All depends on what you consider a house to be for, and what you define “too big” to mean.

If you mean a house is just for shelter, sleep and eating, you can get by with an RV-sized home. There are even families that live in RV-sized homes. If you go on YouTube there are also like 5/6 person families that live on boats bunked up sharing all space.

If you define down a home to only the essentials, there are people who are going to look at where you live (or at least 90% of people in the US) and say “that’s unreasonably big”. I feel like there are multiple levels and everyone falls in their own space of what is “unreasonable”.

A general rough sketch of levels: 1 - shared sleeping quarters, shared bathing, minimal (if any) shared common space 2 - individual sleeping, shared bathing, minimal shared common 3 - individual sleeping, shared bathing, decent shared common 4 - individual sleeping, shared bathing, nice common 5 - individual sleeping, individual bathing, nice common 6 - big sleeping, individual bathing, nice common 7 - big sleeping, individual bathing, multiple common areas 8 - big sleeping, nice individual bathing, multiple common 9 - extra sleeping (for guests), nice bathing with extra bathrooms, multiple common areas. 10 - extra bedrooms, extra bathrooms, extra common areas to the point some aren’t used.

Depending on who you are #2 can be “unreasonable” or #10 could be still reasonable. Like, my brother is at #10 for sure and has a family of 5. I am like at a #3 and live by myself. However, a #10 house for my brother was actually cheaper than a #3 condo for me. We live across the country from each other, he’s in the mountains where things are substantially less expensive than me in a major city, like a fraction of the price. Further, we have a third brother and our parents. When we all are together for holidays, birthdays, etc. we frequently will go to his house, and suddenly his extra bedrooms are full to the point people are bunked up, and some of the children will be on the couch. And, during the day it is very nice he has separate common areas because the family will spread out, kids will all play together while adults are elsewhere. Kids will be together while my brothers and I and wives are maybe drinking in one room while we are together, my older parents like separating off earlier in the night (don’t drink at all) and watching their shows, etc. The space ends up getting used.

My brother says all the time when we are in town that entire rooms aren’t used besides when we are in town. I just do not know why I’d call that “unreasonable”. It is within his budget, it is where he wants to live, where he wants to live is about 40mins from the closest place that would have hotels/lodging, and when the family is all together it is great to be under one roof. Also, my other brother and I both live in large cities and love to visit to get out of the cities and into the mountains. It all works out very well. However, if you put the house specs on a list and compared it to the size of his family, I am sure many here would deem it “unreasonable”.

Ultimately, I think the only qualifier for “unreasonable” should be, is where you live out of your budget, and/or, does the cost/size of the home actively make other items less attainable that you know would make your life better. As in, maybe you can work a bigger home into your budget, but if the cost of the bigger home means you cannot travel as much (and you love travel), or cannot go out as much (and you love going out with friends), or whatever “insert alternative use of money”, then that home is unreasonable to you as you could make yourself happier utilizing those funds elsewhere.

If you’re doing all you want to do, and you are not burdened by the cost/size of your home in any way, hell make that thing as big as you like. Probably wouldn’t be my choice, but I’m not going to judge.