Along with Beanie Babies, the Sony Discman and other trends of the 1990s, the once wildly popular Mediterranean-style home has fallen out of fashion.
An analysis of current home listings shows that asking prices for Mediterranean-style homes—known for stucco walls, tumbled stone and wrought-iron accents—have stalled in recent years, though they remain high. Now, modern architecture, with its subdued color palette and minimalist design, is popular.
The median list price for a Mediterranean-style home is $750,000—three times higher than the median list price for homes of all styles, according to Realtor.com. But since 2012, list prices of Mediterranean-style homes have remained flat, while median home prices overall rose 25%.
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In its examination of four of the most-popular architectural home styles in the U.S.—Mediterranean, modern, Colonial and Victorian—Realtor.com found that Modern homes saw the biggest jump in median asking prices, which rose 37% over four years. (News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal, also owns Realtor.com.)
"The relative lack of appreciation of Mediterranean homes likely results from pent-up demand for newer and more versatile styles," says Javier Vivas of Realtor.com. "These other styles have attracted more eyes and fiercer competition, particularly since the recovery."
The listings database shows that 67% of Mediterranean-style homes currently on the market were built between 1990 and 2009. "Think of it as the Britney Spears of single-family home construction." Mr. Vivas says.
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"There was a period where people created a caricature of the Mediterranean or Tuscan style, increasingly ornate and garish," says Jay Kallos, an Atlanta-based architect for luxury home-builder Ashton Woods. "Now we’re seeing some of that stuff peel away, maybe falling out of favor."
But Mr. Kallos contends that the style’s stigma won’t last. "Good architecture always trumps in any style," he says. "A beautiful and well-designed home will always stand the test of time."