What Size Home Should I Buy? 38% Of Americans Want Bigger Houses, Survey Says

A survey indicated Wednesday that though the size of U.S. homes has grown 60 percent in the last four decades, more than a third of Americans still are dissatisfied.

The survey of 29,000 people in the United States and eight other countries by the real estate search portal Point 2 Homes also found residents of Canada and continental Europe think their homes are just about the right size.

The survey queried people in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Australia.

The American Enterprise Institute said the average U.S. home has grown 1,000 square feet since 1973 to 2,679 square feet by 2013 while household size has declined from 3.01 persons per household in 1973 to 2.54 persons per household last year, which means the square footage of living space per person has grown from 506.6 to 980.7 square feet.

Australians live in the largest homes. American homes generally are 30 percent larger than those in European countries, and Americans have 45 percent more personal space that the British and the French, and 70 percent more than those living in Spain. Thirty-eight percent of Americans said they want bigger homes.

Seventy-four percent of Americans living in homes of less than 1,000 square feet said a good-sized home should have more space than that, with 27 percent agreeing that 1,001-1,500 square feet is a good size. Respondents in Australia, the U.K. and Mexico said a good size home should provide 2,500 square feet.

Point 2 Homes said the median U.S. home size is 1,700 square feet, with a median listing price of $300,000.

The average size home costs way more than $300,000 in 20 of the top cities surveyed, including New York’s Manhattan burrough, Los Angeles and San Francisco. By contrast in Detroit, four average-size homes can be purchased for that sum. In Memphis, for $300,000 a buyer could get two average-size homes and a 1,000 square foot condo.

In San Francisco, $300,000 buys 165 square feet. That increases to 674 square feet in Los Angeles and 1,564 square feet in Chicago.

The Northeast has the largest average size homes at 2,613 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.