Contrary to what many homeowners in densely populated U.S. cities may think, the average size of a residence across the country has increased by more than 70% in the past century.
A new analysis by PropertyShark shows that homes across the U.S.—including both single-family houses and apartments—that were built between 2010 and 2016 spread over 2,430 square foot on average. They are a little more than 1,000 square feet, or 74%, larger than homes built in the 1910s.
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The real estate data provider based its conclusions on data for properties across 32 of the largest and busiest U.S. cities, including New York, Miami and San Francisco. Interestingly enough, the firm also found that the average number of people living in a U.S. house today is 2.58 individuals, compared with 4.54 in 1910. This means that people living in a newly built home have 211% more living space than those who came before them.
U.S. residents with the most space are in Orlando (with an average of 2,988 square feet), San Antonio (2,947 square feet), Nashville (2,678 square feet) and Dallas (2,613 square feet), where houses rank above the national median in terms of size, PropertyShark found. The size of the homes in San Antonio and Dallas are about twice as large as a century ago and the ones in Las Vegas almost triple those built in the 1910s and ‘20s.
On the other hand, Boston has the smallest homes in the U.S. out of the 32 cities in the study, with a current average size of just 909 square feet, compared with 1,360 square feet in the 1990s. The city is small and densely populated, while construction lags behind, the report says.
Other major cities have also seen their homes shrink over the past 100 years. The average New York City home, for example, spans over 1,230 square feet today, and is 11% smaller than in 1910. But Big Apple homes are larger than they were in the 2000s, something PropertyShark attributes to the wave of new luxury buildings with larger apartments.
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In Miami, a city with lots of luxury residential development, homes have gotten 25% smaller since the 1910s, now clocking in at close to 1,200 square feet on average. The reason: Almost all new residences over the past three decades have been condos rather than single-family homes, PropertyShark said.
But an even more telling case is San Francisco. The city ranks second to last among the 32 cities analyzed, with an average size per home of 1,150 square feet, amid notoriously high residential prices. A century ago, nevertheless, the city ranked No. 7 in home size among the cities in the study. And while their fellow Americans are enjoying more room, residents of the Bay Area have 28% less living space than a century ago, PropertyShark found.