I don't know if there's a place on Lemmy yet to post interesting charts/graphs, so I've just been dropping stuff here.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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I wondered myself and briefly tried googling it. I didnโt find any sources I really trusted, but the answered I saw for median were very similar to average.
That's crazy, unless the count of houses has increased tremendously since the 80's (it may have).
Seeing a distribution would help. Also seeing the definitions.
Then I've also seen a house double in size when you add heat to a basement and proper egress. Lots of houses built in the 50's/60's can double legal size this way, without altering the footprint. You can get 3000 sq ft on a typical suburban 1/3 acre lot doing this.
I found these links that look useful from the St. Louis Fed and Census Bureau that look interesting; the Census in particular looks like they offer home construction data going back to the 1950s in Excel format. That could be interesting to play with.
I do seem to remember articles about how many new homes have been built since especially the โ90s as interest rates came down, and how much larger houses started getting. Also anecdotally, apart from your example of finishing basements, Iโve noticed more and more older homes on desirable property being torn down and larger homes being built in their place, some of the old homes being as new as the 1980s and rarely even newer.
Thanks for the links, now I'll be down the rabbit hole in excel!
Yea, I've seen a LOT of properties bought for the full price just to raze it and build new.
Interesting stuff.