1980 Average House Size

The typical home bought today (2020s) is almost twice the size of a home from 1970 to 1980s, a 2-3 car garage (versus 1 in the '70s) has 2-3 bathrooms (versus 1 in the 1970s), better insulation and more. The median lot size on which a single-family home2 was built, as shown in Figure 5, increased from 0.25 acres for homes built in the 1960s or earlier to 0.32 acres for homes built in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and then declined in the 2000s (median of 0.28 acres and 0.25 acres for single. Surprisingly, the average house size in the United States has undergone dramatic transformations over the past four decades.

While homes ballooned to record sizes in 2015, recent trends show a fascinating reversal. Let's explore how U.S. home sizes have changed over time and what this means for today's homebuyers.

The list tracks various stats year by year, including average square feet. Here's a sample, with the figure referring to the average floor area of a new single-family home: 1920: 1,048 square feet. In the 1970s and 1980s, the average size of newly built houses in the United States was often three times larger than those in the Soviet Union.

The Evolution of the American Home: Bigger, But at What Cost? Homes have ballooned in size since 1980, reflecting a cultural shift toward "McMansions" and suburban sprawl. The median new single-family home in 1980 was around 1,595 square feet, a cozy footprint for the era's families. 1980s: Average listing price was just over $216,000.

1990s: Average home size was 2,080 square feet, double the size of homes in the '60s. The average square footage increased 21% over the 1980s, even though the number of room remained the same. 2010: Average number of TVs in each house was 2.93, nearly double the number of TVs in the 1980s.

household size was 3.01 persons. By 1989, average household size had declined to 2.62 persons. The population of 211.9 million in 1973 increased 16.7 percent to 247.4 million in 1989.

The average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s, despite the fact that the average family size has steadily dropped. In the 1950s, the average house measured about 1,000 square feet (about 90 square meters) and housed three or four people. What's the average home size in the U.S., and have they been getting bigger or smaller over the years? here.