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Building Toward Less
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McCarron said that during her 21-year tenure with the company, she's heard similar predictions about shrinking home sizes, particularly when consumers get spooked by rising energy costs. But these forecasts have not panned out in the past, she said.
"I don't believe the fundamental dream of bigger, better, more is going to end anytime soon," McCarron said. "I think people do like nesting spaces, but I think they like them in their 4,000-square-foot houses. They like the idea of reading areas, where they can curl up in the morning and read the newspaper. But they want one for him, for her, for the kids."
Some of the survey results appear to support that idea. For instance, while most of those polled said home size will not grow, 62 percent of them said that demand for two master bedroom suites will increase significantly by 2015.
Frederick Cooper, a senior vice president at Toll Brothers, said the bottom line is: "If you go to someone and say: 'Do you want more space or less space,' they would say more."
Cynthia Baker, a homeowner in Northwest Washington, lives the large-home/small-home debate in her own life.
Baker had more space in mind when her third child arrived. She and her husband, Jon Zeitler, decided to move out of their starter home and into one that's more than 3,000 square feet, with four floors, a big eat-in kitchen plus dining room, four bedrooms, two offices and an au pair basement suite.
But when her husband left his job in April, the family decided to travel through Europe and India, where they stayed in hotels and apartments, cramped into small rooms and living out of duffel bags. When the family returned home four months later, the house looked really big to them.
"It was sort of a revelatory moment," Baker said. "Life really does fill into the spaces we allow it."
They realized that they didn't need all that much space and that larger rooms draw more clutter. More time is spent cleaning extra rooms, such as the den, which Baker originally saw as the family gathering spot. But now that the television is in the basement, the den has become obsolete, she said.
Still, they probably won't move anytime soon.
"We can't necessarily afford a smaller house now," Baker said. "Isn't that the irony?"
