How big of a home do you really need? Not want, NEED!
This might be hard to comprehend, but according to an estimate provided by The Engineering ToolBox, the average person needs between 100-400 square feet within a home to feel comfortable. The size naturally depends on a person’s comfort level which does vary, but it clearly shows that most homes are way over the size that is truly needed to be comfortable.
As I write this I am looking at a listing for a home for sale that has a foyer that is 312 square feet. If the Engineering Toolbox study is correct, most of us could actually become quite comfortable living in the foyer of that home.
For some reason, we want bigger, but don’t really and truly need bigger. Today many buyers want homes with bigger kitchens, bigger bathrooms, bigger bedrooms, bigger walk-in closets and bigger garages. The only thing we don’t want is a bigger mortgage.
Recently the credit monitoring firm TransUnion looked at every active credit file across Canada and found at that time the average Canadian mortgage had $198,781 left on it. That total had increased by almost five per cent in the previous 12 months of their research. There is no doubt the increase is in part because of real estate prices, in general, going up, but some of that is also because of the size of newly built homes that people keep demanding.
The median footage of new homes in North America is now 2,687 square feet, which is an increase of nearly 1,000 square feet in the last four decades. Think about that. Whether you are a Generation Y, Generation X or Baby Boomer, you probably were raised in a home that was almost half the size of what new homes are now.
By the way, the average size of a home within the tiny house movement is 8′ x 20′. I realize that for a growing family with a couple of children and pets it is crazy to think of being comfortable in such a home, but if retirement is around the corner, The Engineering ToolBox says we could be quite comfortable considering the option.
Would you ever consider selling your large home and purchasing an 8′ x 20′ tiny house at retirement?
If you’re planning to downsize check out my Seller Guarantee and if you’re a buyer you need to know about my Buyer Guarantee. Let’s talk about your next home and your comfortable future.
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