McMansions: How The Ultimate American Dream Became A Nightmare
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2023
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Chelsea talks about the American obsession with space, and how having so much of it is actually making us worse off.
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When my wife and I were looking to purchase a home we wanted a home we could tolerate and pay off as quickly as possible. Bankers were trying to convince us that we should get a home suited to our status in society. We purchased a townhouse and have been mortgage free for 20 years.
Same, our banker wanted us to borrow as much as they could lend us. We bought a house 200k less than the bank was approving us for. We have one guest bedroom and my family can't understand why we didn't get something bigger to "host " everyone. Btw my family only visits once a year if we are lucky.
You are both highly intelligent people, that saw through the b#llsh@t from the bank and didn't get pressured into buying something you didn't need 👏👏👏👏👏👏.
@@annabarr1304 When I told the banker if we borrowed more then we would not have enough for a down payment he said "We lend you the down payment and call it a "furniture loan"
@@annabarr1304 Have they heard of hotels, much cheaper in the long run.
Brilliant! I also bought for less than I was pre-approved for.
I grew up in a McMansion that my parent bought in the 90's. Can confirm: we had a dining room and living room that we used once or twice a year... and can also confirm that we filled it with expensive furniture and nicknacks. When I went to buy a home myself, I was intentional that I didn't want to buy more than I needed. I feel blessed to have been able to buy a home, but I am also proud that we use every room in the house most days of the week.
I think its fine to have a formal dining room that's big if everyone in the family (extended family, parents, etc) come over to your house for the holidays. But there were tons of people that had those rooms that never even had people come over.
I wish they would stop building so many of these stupid McMansions. These things are always up for sale when we have a shortage of normal homes.
@@Novusod Home builders love them though. The price per square foot to produce is relatively low versus what they can charge for them.
@@Novusodland and labor is more expensive than in the past. So a high end mcmansion is the only thing that’s sellable. If all the land sellers are greedy and all the workers want higher wages then the builder is fucked on both ends and needs to build both a large home and a well built home. That’s why so many of these new builds are 800,000$ with all the works. Back in 2006 in my metro you could get a shoddily built 3000 sqft mcmansion for 180k. But now they want 600k-1.1 mil for mcmansions. The landsellers are getting greedy in this housing bubble. Also we have a shortage of tradesmen (not that they should have to work for low wages anyway. 50k a year can’t buy you a house anymore 😒)
@@rathelmmc3194better to just have a living room that's large enough to fit the family when you shove some things aside and add some foldable chairs. Any space you're only using once a year should be folded into another space.
I remember Wendy Williams always said that she hated large homes because “there’s more places for the killer to hide” and that always stuck with me! Lol.
So true!!! I love my little 1450 sq ft house, feels super safe to me when I can get to each room of the house under 3 sec 😊 - no basement or stairs to climb. Could be a thing important to women cause I feel very safe in my house
I do want to add an aspect that was not mentioned in this video. My husband and I bought a larger house a few years ago. We are a multi generational household. We have three generations living in the house. Everyone has a space to be alone but the house has community areas where we gather to eat and have fun. Additionally, our extended family frequently comes and spends the night or several nights. In a time where everything is so expensive, we pool our resources and have a close bond.
Now THIS makes sense to have a large house. You’re not living in a house full of unused stuff, but giving your family space to not be on top of each other.
My parents’ house is large even though they live by themselves, but for similar reasons. They host guests (including grandchildren and offspring) all the time, so it makes sense to have several bedrooms even though they’re not used daily.
This, in my opinion is the only justification for having a large house. When all that space is actually utilized.
@@strangerdanger8462 In all fairness, though, people don't have to justify to anyone how big their house is, whether they use it or not. If it's how they choose to spend their money and it makes them happy, that's their right.
@@loriar1027 This is a discussion forum about McMansions. No one is saying anyone has to justify anything. Folks are throwing out opinions for and against. Wow! You must be great fun at parties.😂
@@loriar1027The issue is folks feeling that they have to live like this to fit in even if it would not be their first choice. :(
I’m so glad you mentioned the “third place”. IMO that’s the worst thing about tract housing developments, whether they’re McMansions or more regular sized houses. Not having anywhere to be, other than inside your house- the isolation and lack of connection with a community is bad for mental health. And our kids and the younger generations are already suffering mental health problems at least partly due to isolation. That’s why when we bought our home almost 20 years ago we prioritized living jn a walkable neighborhood. Even though it’s a relatively small and old (100 years old) home with its own share of maintenance issues the fact that we can walk to a library or the grocery store or a café within a few blocks is so, so valuable. And I love the freedom that’s given our teenage son. I wish the US had more neighborhoods that made that possible.
But why ignore that many of the people in those communities go to church and other religious organizations as their third place? Religion is much more common in those areas than cities. Also communities in cities are non existent. No one living in San Francisco or Manhattan knows the majority of people that live in their same building, let a lone their block. People on buses and trains in the city don't talk to each other and generally view people that approach them as a threat. You go to these small communities and that is not the case at all
For an extreme anti-social introvert, like myself, the "third place" is an intolerable place to be. It would mean that I'd be in proximity to other people which is my absolute worst nightmare as I find people to be so horribly annoying. I'm a very private person and prefer solitude as I like my own company the best. Even hearing the voices of other people around me grates on my nerves.
There's a great book about this called Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam.
@@laurie7689 Wow, that sounds really sad. Maybe one day in the future housing communities will be built by personality type lol. Extreme extroverts, extreme introverts, and then gen pop for the rest of us normies, lol. I would personally love to have a community for people who desire the same lifestyle.
@@xoxo_kiyla I suspect that it would help with reducing violence. People do better when they are in communities of people like themselves as they tend to feel safer and more comfortable. People already self-segregate whenever they can. It is only natural. We're tribal. Why not in our personalities, too?
My mom really enjoyed her large house when my siblings and myself were living there. Now that we've moved out, she's exhausted with how much upkeep the house requires for herself and my dad and is ready for apartment life again. Seeing how much it takes to maintain their house, I decided a long time ago I would rather just have a small home or apartment!
The larger house probably made sense at the time. A lot of older folk downsize when the kids move out.
It really doesn’t require much upkeep if no one is living there fool😂
Large homes are ideal for families with children. Post retirement though she should downsize so a nice young couple can afford that house. Bish better not list that damn house for 670k though when she knows damn well she paid 150k for it in the 90s 😒
@@TheNinjapancake14He acts like that is an argument that large houses shouldn't exist. He instead showed exactly why large homes exist. Having to raise a family with 3 kids in a 1 bedroom apartment for $4k a month would not be a great choice
@openranks4519 Yes, grass and hedges detect when there's less people in the house breathing oxygen so they don't grow as fast. Also dust can not accumulate if nobody goes in that room to see it.
I feel extremely privileged that I live in a home with less than 1,400 sq ft, built in 1948, in walking distance to schools, shopping, and parks. It forces me to not buy more stuff because it just won’t fit! So I rarely buy any furniture or decor. Plus 1948 closets are quite small. So I can’t have a large amount of clothing. You can say no to fast fashion much easier when you have nowhere to put it!
I feel the same with a 1600 sq ft 1950s ranch house. There is no basement and only a single car garage. Nowhere to hide stuff! I feel like our life is right-sized. Nearly everything we own is on view every day so we make sure we love it all.
Same!!! Mine's 1400 sq feet exactly and built in 1955. I can walk to 3 parks and a Trader Joe's and several schools (elementary and middle). I feel so blessed.
Same here: 770 sf condo in a small, walkable New England town. I rarely buy anything, and I love it!
I live in a 69 sm home in the UK, balking at these home sizes!!
@@Barnacl3_BoiSame. I'm in Ireland and 1400 square foot for a home is huge here.
It really stinks that sometimes we don't get a choice about what to purchase. All the nice, reasonably sized, actually affordable homes in my area keep getting snatched up by all cash offer flippers. Then they go crazy adding all kinds of extra space and generic remodeling. Once they are done, the 1,000 sqft affordable home moves to a 2,500 sqft million dollar listing. It's frustrating.
Sounds like Bergen County NJ to me haha. That's one thing I hate the most. I don't have issues with modern-day well-built McMansions from the 2010s/2020s but don't build them in older suburbs where homes were built in the 70s/80s. Keep them in subdivisions made specifically for them. Then everyone is happy. The people who want smaller older homes can have them and the people who want big new homes can also have them.
As a woman living alone, I actually feel safer in a condo or townhouse over living in a separate family home. I like having others around me in an emergency situation while still having my own small space. Also, I currently live in a rural area so it's nice to have a small sense of community, especially while living alone.
I can relate to this. I live in a house now, and I feel fairly safe, but I never felt safer than when I lived in a small apartment building. Some of my neighbors were taxi drivers that worked all hours and they were always coming and going. It felt like someone was always around to keep an eye on things.
Agree
I always see people who live in seperate houses install all sorts of security features, as if they were living in a tiny fortress. I am not surprised, it's human instinct, we feel safer in groups, which is why people formed villages instead of everyone having seperate tree houses in the jungle. I once housesat a house that was out in the middle of a large orchard, and I felt quite eery at night and locked everything twice and if I saw someone on the path through the property I felt like I wanted a shotgun or something. (I live in a safe country, nothing happened there and people don't usually have guns.)
Those mcmansions are so easy to break into especially if windows and garage door are dated. That ring light and ez up cameras I can knock down with a broomstick ain't doin nuffin. Roof access can hide in back yard. Shit or easy to hide around fences. Lol not that I have ever
Where do you live??…I’ll make you feel really good sweetheart 😏
I rented a townhouse that was built by one of those McMansion developers and it was horrid. I could hear all my neighbors all the time. Sitting next to any window in the winter was freezing. Everything was falling apart and the home wasn’t even 10 years old. ‘Builder grade’ is an absolute scam. Who wants to buy a house that you have to turn around and replace everything in? And while we’re at it, screw whoever convinced everyone they needed to remodel their kitchens in the 90s.
You are so right! Also, YESSS whoever decided the 90's were the time to gut all the old school midcentury style kitchens deserved bad karma
And they replaced them with the ugliest Florence “inspired” design details which were inserted everywhere without attention paid to the actual necessity.
Of course, "builder grade" is just a phrase for the absolute cheapest and often low quality materials that is often bought in bulk by developers. I exclusively buy older, cheaper homes in neighborhoods that are not HOA - most houses I lived in throughout the years were about 40 years old at the time of purchase. These houses may have originally had what was "builder grade" decades ago but it was often of higher quality - unless it had things like lead paint or asbestos which I would immediately remove. Pains of an older house aside, I could replace what I wanted as I got the house cheap to begin with. Funnily enough I am dealing with a major kitchen remodel at the moment - one done about 20 years ago, technically from the early 2000s but still scream "90s" with its orange oak cabinets, Corian countertop and white appliances - most of it in good shape but just appear tired.
I don't know who told you that "builder grade" meant high quality. What it means is cheap. It was what the builder could buy cheaply and in large volume. The same fixtures, cabinets, etc. went into every home they built.
The best of both worlds would be to have towers where each 2 floors could hold a mcmansion. That way you can cram more luxury living spaces. The lower tier single units can be small apts. and for cars, just make giant parking garages or vending machine style ones.
I grew up in McMansion hell and it's very true that people end up buying crap for the sole purpose of filling rooms! My family was like this. We had a whole half of our house with a bunch of furniture and a pingpong table collecting dust and no one goes in there except maybe twice a year.
Funny how when you’re young and raising a family and in need of a large home you cannot afford it. Later in life when you can afford a larger home, you don’t need it.
You just described everyone in Louisiana. Middle class people pretending to be rich while complaining about being poor from lifestyle choices. You have NO CLUE how accurate this video is.
Definitely describes Lafayette...
@@christa3224lmfaoooooo say it louder for the ppl in the back. I don’t feel embarrassed about my 1940s rental of a childhood home anymore, knowing that my middle class peers were secretly drowning in debt in their huge youngsville castles
Those same middle class people will tell you that renting is "throwing away money"...
@@moneycessity It is.
Homer Simpson was a funny example of a homeowner who probably makes less than he can afford in a home, but what immediately popped into my head was Married with Children. Never made sense how Al Bundy could afford a house like that on a shoe salesman income…
I always use the Friends apartments, although those weren’t SFH
That was a running gag on _Married..._ that Al was so heavily in debt that he would never get out of it. On more than one occasion he threatened to put Bud "in" the will, meaning that Bud would be on the hook for an unspeakable amount of debt. Al wasn't subsisting on his meager income, he was living on deficit spending.
😂
That's because he drove the same dodge for a million miles. 😄
Al Bundy's House did not have a second floor. It just had a stairway
I’m probably going to be in the minority here, but if you’ve ever had a nightmare of a neighbor then you’ll understand wanting isolation. I don’t necessarily need a McMansion and wouldn’t get one if I couldn’t afford it, but I absolutely want a well built house on acres away from people. I’ve lived in expensive apartments and lower cost apartments, and they all had one or two obnoxious neighbors who would ruin the building. Wanting to buy a single family detached home is something I won’t apologize for because my peace is priceless.
this!
I know this feeling. Lived in apartments most of my adult years and the peace and privacy tradeoff is real. And I've generally had pretty good neighbors but when someone's smoke, be it weed or other, wafts through your apartment or you can hear your neighbors...doing things, while it's certainly not the end of the world it is a point in the con side of a dense housing.
@@ariwl1 I used to live in an apartment and our neighbors were constantly arguing and screaming at their kids. One day I woke up to my neighbors yelling at the kids and I was like "dang it's 7 in the morning. What did the kids do already??" lol.
@@lemoncat9213 Oh man warring neighbors are the worst. Nothing makes me want to live away on land more than feeling like I have a front row seat to family drama.
For a while, I got to live in an apartment with great soundproofing. My neighbour right next to me was a party girl, and I had gone over a few times and while it wasn't crazy loud, it was definitely party noise. I was amazed when whenever I went to the bathroom in my apartment, I could only hear a bit of bass. My fridge was louder. I really wish this kind of soundproofing was the standard and wouldn't make a unit cost a fortune to live in...
I was always ashamed of my childhood home, a 1940s built rental home on piers with old used cars in a poor neighborhood. We only had one bathroom for four people. I longed for a huge house in the suburbs and fancy family cars in garages and lots of bathtubs. Now I know that my parents did the smart thing, saving money to cover medical debt. The rich suburbs flooded almost every month, our little neighborhood of elderly/immigrants/poor folks didn’t flood. I won’t buy a huge home even if I can afford it years from now, something with good bones and low natural disaster risk is enough.
When I was a kid my DREAM was to have a McMansion. That was really only to prove to everyone that I’d “made it” and had so much money. After spending time in NYC and abroad I laugh at just how far my preferences have shifted from what younger me wanted. And I HATE that there’s nowhere in the US that can give us a walkable, community that isn’t NYC. And it’s all because of corporate lobbying! We’ve been scammed.
NYC is a shithole though. If you love being pushed onto train tracks, move to NYC
Yup. The way the suburbs zone shit is stupid. Stores and shops should be allowed in residential districts if the citizens approve.
Literally every major metropolitan area in the US has a walkable urban core if you want that
I used to think that way about buying a farm: i didn't really want to live on a farm, it was what succesful people were doing (according to tv)
There are lots of cities in the U.S that have that walkable community feeling, especially on the east coast. Boston, for instance, is very walkable.
I've stayed in my "starter home" that's 1,400 sq. ft. A huge house full of a bunch of things sounds stressful; more stuff to repair, maintain, and replace. While we could afford a McMansion, staying in our smaller home means we don't have to work until th3 age of 70 and hopefully our child won't have any student loans.
I'm in the same position as you! Have a 1400 square footer and chose it over the McMansions. It's a cute house with enough space for my husband and baby and I. I grew up in McMansion hell and prefer having a cozier classic type of home.
This sounds like the perfect home size to me, but I've also lived in a 500 sqft apartment with my partner for like 6 years.
Leaving in Europe, here it is quite a decent house, definitely not a starter pack, this is interesting, how the things vary from country to country
Same here! 900 sq. ft. bungalow and we couldn't be happier. The loan officer asked why we were buying such a small house when we qualified for a larger loan.
@@katerynadvornichenko1400 sqft in america is only a 3 bedroom 2 bath ranch. One living room, one dining nook and one kitchen. And usually a 2 bay garage on the front of the home. Almost every post 1980s small ranch in America is laid out like this. Nowdays many ranches are 1800-2000 sqft so they can be 4 bed 2/3 bath with an office and a better master bath/ master closet. 2 stories require more space cause of stairs
Growing up, we lived in a comfortable home that was PAID OFF and had been for years. In middle school, my parents decided they “deserved” a bigger house, so they started adding on to our home. The layout was so bad and made no sense. The market crashed, we went bankrupt, and lost the house. So traumatizing. My best memories are of when we grew up in our smaller home. It wasn’t even that small!!!! Plenty of space! Parents have passed on and I can’t help but think of how much generational wealth was lost (especially in our current housing market). Sigh. . .
We just purchased a 1985 1700 sq ft home in an old neighborhood. It looks dated as hell, but it was clearly a high end builder. Everything feels so solid. We're finding how to properly bring it in 2023 without stripping out all our beautiful wood casement windows and wood trim. I'm so grateful to not have a plastic feeling house.
Mine was built in 1945. You can't beat the quality build.
Make sure you keep the wood casement windows, I was reading somewhere or saw in a video that if you take care of them and maintain them, they last a super long time and you won’t have to replace them
As a Europen, the size of US house in many mom vlogs is astonishing. We have 700 sq ft for three, all adults/young adults. That would be considered a tiny house in the US.
700 sqft is a medium to large 1 bedroom apartment in the US. I don’t see how more than 2 beds can fit in 700 sqft
I live in a neighborhood built for the working class during the 1950s. Most of the homes on my street were originally 2-bedroom homes and even the smallest homes on my block are over 800sqft. I have no clue how my next door neighbors raised 3 kids in that house. They must have been a very close family. I can also tell which part of the house used to be a garage from the outside, but once I get inside, I can't figure out where the kitchen and dining area and garage would have all existed in that one tiny area.
My husband and I just bought a home for the first (hopefully only,) time and that alone is a massive privilege, but weirdly it was only possible because no one wanted our adorable 1920s bungalow on a quiet street 2 blocks from a great lake, and 6 blocks from the town main street. But the developments and subdivisions on the other side of the freeway that go for 40,000+ more were hot cakes getting AOs in 48 hours.
I don't think I will ever understand other people's priorities.
That sounds amazing!
Same I got a house that's 1200 square feet for $62,000... Beautiful bungalow in a diverse neighborhood.
Congrats! And it's nice to actually see a homeowner who acknowledges how privileged they are.
Sounds lovely. I’d love to find something like that. Enjoy!
Your house sounds so great!
It’s so much better for us to live below our means. The debt is overwhelming, almost impossible to get out of, and so stressful.
Imagine how much to heat or cool it!
My family and I don’t need/want a ‘McMansion’, BUT we love having a larger home that comes with privacy from neighbors, security, comfort, quiet, a yard for the kids to play in, rooms for everyone to use without being literally on top of each other, and just a great quality of life. Tiny $4500/month NYC shoeboxes aren’t for everyone.
This comment is the most rational and relatable comment I've read after reading them.for 20 minutes. Fully agreed.
Same. If I could have bought a smaller house on 2+acres, I would have. But all the houses around me on a lot that size were large houses. After suffering years of terrible neighbors living on top of me in tight neighborhoods, I love having a lot of space between me and neighbors. It makes my life more peaceful, and I love it. Not everyone wants to live in dense neighborhoods. If that's your thing, great, enjoy, but not everyone wants to live like that.
Lifestyles like that are a historical anomaly and are not sustainable without cheap fuel and huge public infrastructure debt subsidizing it. If you work remotely (or work your land agriculturally) it can make some sense, but commuting is very wasteful. You don’t interact with people organically outside of work which can be hugely isolating. (Church can fill this gap but comes with its own set of issues)
Medium sized cities are where it’s at IMO, you get enough people for it not to be insular, dull, and lacking economic opportunities like small towns but you don’t get the massive traffic and feeling of isolation from too many people that can happen in big cities.
Everyone has different preferences but we need to think practically about how we design the spaces we live in to avoid destroying the environment and culture.
There's an additional aspect that's rarely-covered: "right-sized" homes are likely more conducive to better relationships within the family/household. My wife's family shared a small townhouse together, and consequently had to learn to be better at things like conflict-resolution and resource-sharing, and are also sorta forced to spend more time together (e.g. they had 1 TV for the whole family, so TV time was family time) - and this shows in the quality of their relationships.
Conversely, my family of 4 had a large home - large enough that we could avoid each other (everyone had a room - there were multiple TVs so there was no need to share/learn to compromise) - and frankly, I think our relationships suffered (or at least weren't helped).
I mostly agree, but it is tricky. I grew up in a McMansion neighborhood and the way that people used these bigass houses definitely showed in their relationships. Some McMansions were appropriately sized for the multi-generational households that needed a bunch of rooms. Then there were those who had 3 family members living in a 6 bedroom house--the isolation and coldness was palpable. BUT.. I also see the other side of things. Many of my relatives were forced to live with their in-laws in a tiny space and it almost always fostered deep-seated resentment and broken relationships. Culture plays a big part in how we view dwellings and what is "appropriate" space.
@@emikosawanobori6946i think 'average' is definitely best: a large house isolates the inhabitants, a small house constantly forces people into each others bubble.
Multiple bedrooms per person is stupid, everyone having their own bedroom gives them a place to relax.
My home was like that and I enjoyed it immensely. Now that I'm a married adult with a single family home, I have two rooms that are mine exclusively so that I can have all the Me-Time that I desire, which is a lot, since I'm an introvert. My husband is an extrovert and goes out to play and socialize to his heart's content with his friends while I remain home and spend my time in leisurely solitude. This is my desired type of familial relationship. I love my husband, but I can't stand being around him for very long. We've been married for over 25 years now.
90% of this is due to car culture. My GF and I own a detached single family home that has no garage. We've slowly realized all the benefits are for car culture - working on the car when it's snowing/hailing/raining, using power tools or charging EVs when it's snowing/raining, storing the motorcycles and bicycles in the garage to keep them dry during the cold season... and our resale value takes a hit because no one can store their car out of the elements without a garage.
I'm living a version of this now in a smaller apt aspiring for one with a modicum of security to even own a car again after mine was towed right out of my spot so someone else could start parking there
Perhaps, but her car culture argument makes several incorrect assumptions. Like I commented in that video. First, it's almost impossible for the future of cars to be electric. Especially since the utility companies pretty much have a monopoly in most cities, and the infrastructure is nearly 50 years behind, with no urgency to upgrade. In her words regarding sub prime loans, these utility companies are "Extremely predatory" Second, Dems drive trucks too, including UAW members. Third, the majority of the US population lives in the suburbs. Fourth, I'm not going to go so far and say true generational wealth is a myth, but it's exceptionally rare, even with people that lived in the 1950's.The odds of their families still having that wealth today is depressingly low. Finally, poor road maintenance is due to a number of factors, less then quality materials, semi truck loads (yes, I realize this is a fact of consumerism) and weather, etc. Not to mention politicians making crappy deals with the road commissions and the vendors. (Both Dems and Reps are guilty of this.) I'm not a big fan of McMansions. (I live in a 1940's cape cod that is not too big and not too small.) And, I'm not a fan of obsessives consumerisms, but these industries keep a lot of people employed and the economy turning. But that's a whole new critical conversation....
@@jaredmiller8740 I spend good money for quality durable goods that I shouldn't have to replace. All Clad and LeCreuset cookware, La-Z-Boy furniture, etc. Buy once and keep for decades. My pants? From a thrift store. Decor? Also thrift store. My car? A 9 year old Camry I intend to drive until the wheels fall off. I do have a nice Polo branded jacket...but I bought that off eBay for $23. I refuse to spend any more than necessary on anything that wears out.
I don't need or want a big house. I just want a house that's the right size for my needs. A kitchen with enough counter space to work on (instead of the cramped kitchen I have in my apartment). A backyard for a small garden and yard for the dog to do her business. An extra bedroom I can run my art business out of. Space for bookshelves. That's all
As a guy who worked a lot of housing tracts in the 90's and 2000's, there were 2 really weird things for me.
One, these houses were completely one-sided. The rear and sides of the house were just flat walls with no more windows than absolutely necessary.
Two, almost as if to compensate, the fronts were a complex web of completely unnecessary gables, often bizarre windows (complete with false mullions), mixtures of faux bricks and river rock, and strange arches.
I did customer service work for these things, and by the end, it almost seemed like there were only 2 kinds of homeowners left.
One would be someone who was so happy to have this home. Those people were a delight.
The other were the people who didn't have a stick of furniture in the house and were just trying to hold onto it for a couple of years. Yeah, those people were rough to deal with.
My father is an HVAC technician and whenever he works in peoples McMansion style homes, the owners always complain about how difficult it is to maintain consistent temperatures across the house. Those homes aren’t designed well from an airflow and space use perspective, which ends up costing more to heat and cool.
I grew up in a suburb dominated by McMansions (didn’t live in one) and it definitely left me feeling envious. I didn’t learn about urban planning in until college and how much better our quality of lives could be. Thank you for addressing these issues ❤
I've always been curious about these gigantic houses: how do you clean them? Like, how many people and time are necessary to go through all the room and make sure there's no spider nets, dust... and how many times a month/week? How much money is invested just in the cleaning with hiring people to do it, or do the owners actually clean themselves? What about all the glass windows and glass doors? It's terrible how glass becomes stained if not cleaned frequently, and I xan only imagine the enormous amount of work to keep them impecable. People who live in these houses are living to the house, working to pay for the mantaince of the house instead of enjoying and having meaningful lives
I’ve visited a fair share of McMansions and the neighborhoods are so eerie. The houses all look the same (and ugly with no character), the insides feel plastic, you don’t hardly see anyone out and about and even if you do, it doesn’t seem like they want to talk to you. We bought a house in a neighborhood built in 1953 - it’s the classic post war suburb, but since it’s 70 years old, the houses have evolved over time, none are larger than 1500 sf, there’s more of a mix of type of neighbors, and we can walk to way more places than we could in a McMansion development. McMansions are truly heinous and I will never live in one.
Such a hater.
They say that the future horror stories will be placed in the mansions built just before the 2008 crash.
There were 7 McMansions recently built in my neighborhood, dwarfing the homes around them. It's bad enough that the cost homes in Northern Virginia is so egregious but these things have a starting price of 1.6 million a piece. The biggest one has yet to be sold and every time I drive past it, the mean spirited part of me hopes the builder is hemorrhaging money. Lol
😳😳
😂😂😂😂. Why are they allowed to build such huge houses? I don't live in the USA but usually you can only build on a set percentage of the total land area, so a Mcmansion wouldn't get approval unless it's on a huge piece of land.
@@anaalves3658depends on the municipality but Virginia has large lots, mcmansions can be very small (only 2600-3000 sqft) and even a midsized lot like 7200 sqft often you can build half the lot in home sqftage
My husband, two kids and I lived in an apartment for a year while he was between jobs. I thought i would hate it, but there were lots of great things that outweighed not having extra space. I spent a lot of time getting outside with my kids and our dog and going to the apartment pool. This was because I had to, but also because I wasn't spending so much time inside, taking care of the house. Now that we are living in a house again, I'm trying to be more aware of what we have so all my time isn't taken up with taking care of my material possessions.
❤ Houses are overrated. Or are the apartments underrated? I just know that the difference in the upkeep costs is huge. There is also no lawn to take care of.
I lived in McMansion hell in Northern Virginia for 30 years. We had 3,500 sqft, sure it was great for hosting parties, charity fundraisers and having relatives and friends stay with us when they visited Washington D.C. But it was kind of a joke; we had three cars and two people, rooms we never used, brick front with nonfunctional shutters, vinyl siding, hollow core doors, etc. all for $1.25M. We sold our house, sold our cars, gave away or donated most of our belongings, and moved to Paris on a retirement visa. We walk to everything and live in a 1,000 sqft apartment with two people. For Parisians, 1,000 sqft it is considered almost a McMansion apartment! We have a living room, dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a balcony and a cellar. One bedroom is our office and the other is often filled with visiting family or friends. We can walk to 10+ grocery stores in 5-10 minutes, have every imaginable thing; food, clothing back arts, culture, medical, metro, bus, biking, steps from our front door and all at lower prices and better or equal quality to what we could find in the DMV living inside the beltway!
You could’ve just had children instead 🙄. The point of a 5 bed 4.5 bath house is to have a large family in
@@LucasFernandez-fk8se it was really about location, community amenities, and maximizing an appreciable asset. The space was helpful for the foreign exchange students we hosted every year. It was also a good space for pets, especially a large dog. The high-end condos in downtown DC are not really designed for easy pet access to recreation areas and quick access into and out of the building with elevator wait time and security. Surprisingly with a square footage it was just a four bedroom three and a half bath house with lots of extra office and eating spaces and family gathering areas.
@@LucasFernandez-fk8secouldn't retire to Paris if he had children. DINKS and their humblebrag. Living somewhere for 30 years is definitionally, the picture of tolerance. It was in fact right for their stage in life by his own admission. #Hottake
@@GonzoT38 It was a convenient location for me for amenities and work. When I founded my company, we placed the HQ in Tysons Corner. This was a very short distance from my home. You are probably not familiar with commuting in the DMV, but the metro system only recently provided access to Tysons. The bike infrastructure to Tysons was also non-existent. So going even a short distance in a car can take 30 minutes to 1.5 hours each way daily. You have to make trade-offs on the value of your time. Walkable core neighborhoods are not very available in NoVa. Also, you make some bad assumptions about DINKS, very often they are really SINKS. Also, I easily donated more to philanthropic causes supporting education than 99% of US households ever spend raising their kids. It is not difficult to retire in Paris. Purchasing housing is the same as many major US markets and rents are lower than all major US urban metro areas. The cost of living equal to or lower than the US, especially medical costs. The US has a special tax treaty with France, so taxes are based on US rates. The retirement visa process is straight forward and the probable monthly income is only about $1,800/month. Easily within reach of even just social security. Expand your thinking - the opportunities of the world will open to you.
@@LucasFernandez-fk8se O_o "Increase your number of people" is a weird solution to too much space when "decrease your space" is right there.
In my city we had an infamous case of McMansion bullshittery when a bunch of them were built on known unsafe land to make quick money and, surprise surprise, a bunch of them started sliding and splitting, leading to emergency foreclosures.
People have not bought stuff to fill McMansions, they bought McMansions ti store their overwhelming amount of stuff! Even with these large houses people parked their cars ouside the garage and dedicated their garage to extra storage and many families living in these houses have rented commercial storage as well.
Gawd almighty, how? Just... How?
So true. I see these huge houses with all their cars parked on the street because the garages are bursting as the seams with junk
Recently I purchased a 1,500 SF house built in the 70s - roughly a third in size of what would be considered a "McMansion." The house is space efficient with 4 bedrooms/2 baths - 3 bedrooms are roughly 10x10's which most people would call "tiny" and the master bedroom is just 11x13. Both bathrooms are small and each contain the basic sink, toilet, tub. The house fits my family of 4 comfortably and I really can't imagine "needing" a larger house - mine feels "big" enough as is! But my favorite thing about it - no HOA!
This is how my house is, too! Every space is snug, but there are lots of little spaces (4/3 with upstairs and downstairs living rooms). And the view out of every window is lovely. My house is not “goals” to many people, but I couldn’t love it more! ❤
In my hometown, there were beautiful craftsman homes about a century or so old. They had maybe two bedrooms and one bath but amazing details. When new owners bought some of these houses, they decided to level them and build new ones; the end results were out of place eye sores.
McMansions have always been strange to me because there's an awkward gap between the amount of money it takes to afford one and the amount of money it takes to afford one AND KEEP IT WELL-MAINTAINED. I have a 2300 sq ft house, and that's pretty much as much house as I can reasonably take care of, since I can't hire someone to clean it for me and things do need periodic repairs. I just can't fathom wanting that much house to have to take care of. It's too much work.
When my spouce and I started looking at homes it has been staggering to realize how inefficient the layouts of ginormous houses. Seriously a bedroom doesn't need to be a suite. And a house that's 3000sqaure feet that only has 3 bedrooms is crazy.
So true. My house was constructed in 1951, in the USA. It was built as a family house, 3 bedrooms. Total square feet? 1450. That's considered teeny by today's standards.
This video hit hard for me. I grew up in what used to be rural Colorado and I'm seeing this cycle firsthand. Giant houses that take up most of the lot they're on being built in a year or less...and being advertised as "Single family homes" starting at 800k. It's hard to watch.
My dad used to sell firewood as a side hustle, and he would often deliver wood to houses with formal rooms that were virtually empty because the owners had spent so much for the house that they couldn't afford to furnish it. I'm quite happy with my 800-square-foot apartment with attic storage. I wouldn't want a bigger place. I don't want to spend my life cleaning.
Can we talk about how McMansions are literally subsidized by their dense city centers? Force the suburbs to pay their fair share for road and utility maintenance.
Lots of the infrastructure serving the parasitic suburbs is reaching its end of life, there's a looming parasite suburban bankruptcy crisis as their water and sewage systems need more and more replacement. I for one, will watch it with glee.
Vice Versa punk. Cities are subsidized by the entire nation because theyd all fall apart if we stopped allowing illegal immigration. Suburbs are a way out of those hellholes.
@@toin9898 Where do you live? I don't ask for the proper location, but just is it urban, suburban or rural? What kind of neighbourhood?
Also, those are the poor subsidising the rich.
@@lampyrisnoctiluca9904 I live somewhere more densely populated than Brooklyn. Also, that's not how it works. Poor people live in cities or rurally. The suburban lifestyle necessitates a certain amount of money to sustain (cars, increased upkeep costs associated with HOAs, higher utility costs etc etc), they may *feel* poor as their cars bleed them dry but they're usually financially better off than their rural or urban counterparts.
@@toin9898 I was agreeing with you. You misunderstood me. Of course the richest live in the suburbs. I know that. Their infrastructure is being subsidized by the poor of the more densely populated parts of the cities.
Thank you for validating my hatred for McMansions and McMansion neighborhoods. I could watch a whole series on this.
Additional reasons to hate them: Their neighborhoods are artificially insular. Developments fail to accommodate displaced wildlife. The houses often lack windows on a whole side. They cause indoor pollution due to all the new carpeting and other materials combined with tight weather sealing that reduces airflow from outside. They deteriorate faster due to cheap materials. They are architecturally a mishmash and often have poor layouts that don’t accommodate family habits.
Every time someone talks about McMansion hell I cheer
I'm hearing more from friends and other about living intergenerationally, especially families with young kids who desperately need the support that we historically had from relatives. The single family home as a concept is also isolating for families as well. I wonder how many of these McMansions could be repurposed into multi-generational dwellings allowing for private space, work from home space, and community space within the home.
As a child of immigrants, I dreamt of buying an HOA home that wasn’t necessarily a McMansion, but always wishing we had more space.
Now I live in the exact type of home I dreamt of growing up, and while I now realize I don’t need as much space as we theoretically say we need, it is nice to have space to call my own.
But living in Vegas, a city filled with McMansions, I’ve been unlearning this idea that in a few years we’re gonna sell to move into a huge house for cheap, and I’ve been accepting and loving the idea of living in my home for many years, as this is more than most of my family has had in the motherland, and because we can always customize the home to use space in a smarter way. My ideal is using tiny home building/storage practices and adapting them to my “normal” home.
What u do for a living in vegas?
As a single American, the biggest house I could ever realistically see myself living in would probably max out at 1500 sq ft. That's arguably still too big depending on your perspective but I've spent pretty much all my adult years living in apartments that are at most half that size so you do get a "the grass is greener" effect in regards to space and privacy. But it's definitely a trade off. The bigger something is the more upkeep it requires, and that doesn't even get into lawns which I have a borderline irrational distaste for.
I have lived in apartments that large as a single person and I found that I used one bedroom and the living room. The other bedroom was not used.
@@Mezog001 I work mainly from home so one would definitely be an office/multipurpose room.
Hahah I'm looking to buy a home (really, a condo or small town house) right now and a
I have learned that lawns and significant sidewalks / driveways are apparently deal breakers for me. As a single woman living alone, I'm tired just thinking of maintaining the lawn or shoveling the snow (I live in Canada). My rule is if I have to buy a lawn mower, I'm out.
@@grammarnazi12 For real. I would love a garden, but I'm picturing a small backyard with a limited amount of grass. We're talking just enough that I could use one of those manual push mowers and be done in like 5-10 minutes. XD
Your distaste for lawns is correct.
I love The Big Short! I would like to recommend the channel “Not Just Bikes”, and I would love to see Chelsea’s take on lawns.
Would love a collaboration with Not Just Bikes!!
So would I. An episode of The Financial Confessions or something.
My home was built in 1939 and is about 1300 sq feet. I'm always complaining about needing more space so its surprising to hear that my home was larger than the average size home at that time. Its funny how our expectations have been manipulated into thinking bigger is normal. Its like we don't even know what "normal" is anymore, everything is supposed to be humongous!
Many of these houses also have large lots that are turned into chemical and water guzzling lawns. Ugly, expensive, useless. The American Dream.
Plus God only knows how many mature trees were bulldozed to build those houses.
I also think schools play a big factor in exacerbating this phenomenon. White flight led to many places where city schools are worse than surrounding suburban schools, and now parents with young families who want to prioritize education may be forced to choose between a diverse neighborhood where they want to live and a better funded/staffed school. Since they have young families and limited budgets but probably require more space than they will at any other point in their lives, they get left with narrower options. If I have to move the burbs, at least I can get a pool table and recreate some of the experiences I might have had being able to go to a bar on a Saturday night?
If I had the money I would much rather have a smaller, well built home/apartment, with character and personality, less maintenance, less responsibility and less worries. None of these Mcmansions appeal to me aesthetically they seem entirely to serve the purpose of perceived hight status. It's very freeing once you let go of any idea that you need to prove your 'status' to anyone. We can choose to not care about these supposed 'societal expectations'.
I live in a MacMansion but I reside in Texas. Everything is bigger here and all the homes in my neighborhood sits on a acre 🤷🏾♀️.
When I bought my house in 2008, I had to repeatedly remind my realtor that just because the houses were lower in price, I didn’t want more home than I needed as a single woman or that could take care of long term. I kept leaning towards something less than 1500sq ft and no more than 2-3bd and 1-2 bath. This is in Tampa and now after watching the expense of upkeep on those massive homes in my area, I’m even more happy I pushed for a smaller home that I’m still happy with 15years later in a solidly middle class neighborhood. I’ve also almost got it paid off.
u ate with this one. my father is a political refugee from Havana, Cuba. my family became Americanized in Chicago from 79- the 80s. when my father wanted to buy our first family home in south florida he was very disgusted w/ the Mcmansion concept and could see past the illusion of safety and wealth. he is very street smart, grew up around gangs and became a gang member himself, and a doctor later on. he did not like the show of it at all. it's what we call "plastic". nothing is real. the material is "plastic", the people are "plastic", etc. he was very disgusted by it all. We ended up moving into a ranch house on an acre of land in a rural community.
My McMansion childhood sucked. When I could have been studying or exploring a walkable neighborhood and developing my individuality, my main childhood memories are mostly of yard work and not being allowed outside unless parents were home. I vowed never to live like that. My friends thought the same, though after a couple of decades they all think it's THE ONLY way to live and look down on anyone who doesn't. I'm still holding out!
Looks at my 900 square ft apartment for a family of three...and thinking that none of this is even a little bit relatable....
Lol ikr I live in a one bedroom apartment with my hubby 755ft and I'm like hmmm can't relate lol
I don’t want a huge house but I do want land to have a small garden 😢 but builders these days always build houses with 1 foot of land to space, it looks ridiculous
Bought a 270 sq ft studio 10 years ago in a great walkable neighborhood and my bank account has loved me ever since. Can’t buy useless crap if there is no room for it.
Homer is a nuclear power plant operator, he's definitely middle income. My husband and I do that we make a pretty good living.
I come from that suburban McMansion is king life style. I am so lucky I was able to buy a house, but I bought a house in a city with a yard. My house needs a LOT of renovations we are doing ourselves.
My family often views my house and the area I live as unsafe simply because its the "city" and houses are trashy because a few don't appear as nice as some. We have an incredibly diverse area with fantastic neighbors, but thats all out the window because...no McMansion
As Not Just Bikes put it:
"We've yot a room for every kid, of course.
And this is the guest room.
And this is the guests' guest room, in case the guests have guests.
There's no gym nearby, so I'm gonna turn this room into a gym.
There's no bar nearby, so I'm going to turn this one into a bar.
There's no library nearby so I'm going to turn this into a library.
There's no church nearby so I'm going to turn this into a zoo.
There's no minigolf nearby so... well, you get the idea.
Yep, this is the ultimate way to live."
I recently moved into a 2 bedroom apartment alone because it was pretty much the exact price and location i wanted, and tbh at first i felt really guilty that i could be taking the space from someone who needed it more. I now use the extra room as basically a play area for my cat and it’s open for the possibility of becoming an office/game area if my partner were to move in, but the thought of fully furnishing it as a guest bedroom or something that i would never use is so stressful to me
You could turn the extra room into a gym or a gym/office.
There are a lot of clever guest beds now that can hide away and serve multiple purposes. My aunt had one that folds out of a footrest. When they have guests they just bring it from the living room to the guest room/office/gym/craft room. It was super comfy and they didn’t just have a bed hanging around taking up space.
13:52 to 14:55 was giving a lot of uncomfortable flashbacks to my childhood. Pantries so big I could comfortably sit on a top shelf and put cereal boxes in front during hide and seek at a friend's house. That is to say though, it was large enough to fit me WITH the food in there, they only filled it enough to have the appearance of fullness.
I live in an upscale part of L.A. and I've noticed that there's a developer that has bought the smaller, older, homes in the area and tears them down to build giant ugly McMansions. These are not huge developments, but instead single homes built lot line to lot line with no actual architectural design. There are a couple of streets where it's almost every other house in variations of the same design. And they're built so quickly that I can't believe they're made with any quality. So I guess it's starting again...
I see the same thing in the pricier suburbs of Boston.
That's so sad, especially in LA. Those older houses must be pretty solid if they survived its seismic activity for decades and the new construction probably won't.
I buy small houses on large lots in towns where new houses are being built on small lots. Eventually the large lot will either be split or someone will want to build a mansion there. It’s always a “good deal/good idea” if it’s a good company/property etc. market fluctuations are just gravy.
Get your investments right before venturing into real estate, I leverage on the volatility of the market for significant returns rather than holding and loosing value to the volatility of the market I made my first mill from going diverse, mainly stocks, ETFs, few Cryptocurrencies and bonds. thankful to my now financial advisory Olivia Rene Reyes. It’s a long term plan for me so I invest and re-invest. about to purchase my second property ..she's the best in the business
An everyday millionaire. Well done
found her webpage by looking up her name online.... Her resume is quite outstanding, I'll be writing a mail to her shortly
Very entrepreneurial of you
@@michaelgraham19871 thanks for the tip!
I've seen this firsthand, usually when people start making six figures. I have colleagues who have moved to suburban, even rural areas in order to get the amount of house they think they are entitled to with their earnings. This is exacerbated by the view that it is borderline child abuse to raise children in an apartment in the city.
I have seen people on single incomes making 23 an hour get one of these then go right to the next step of getting an Escalade because everyone else has one in the neighborhood and they are effectively poor each check. Pools in the backyard that they can never hope to maintain or almost constant repairs from those cheap materials she mentioned.
The amount people pay for electricity to cool these monstrosities in Louisiana is obscene.
@@PaulRizzo504the McMansions in flood zone suburbs in Louisiana with all the SUVs are what I dreamed of growing up in a poor rental South Louisiana neighborhood. Now I realize my parents did the right thing, and our house on piers with old used cars was appropriate for a place that floods so much. A concrete slab foundation with mortgage and flood insurance and a huge leased SUV is just ridiculous. My undergrad peers live that life and I’m not jealous.
Great point about the borderline child abuse view.
@@PaulRizzo504$23/hour isn’t even enough to get a tiny house where I live! I need to move to Louisiana if houses are THAT cheap 😂.
@@mastersnet18 quantity>quality with real estate in Louisiana. Choose wisely with housing there. Flood plains, natural disaster repair history, septic tanks, etc are good things to ask if you find a cheap place.
Love my mcmansion. Raised my family here. Worked very well during covid. I'm on a half acre. My kids are 18 and over now. We have the room for them to kick back and save money while being able to have their own section of the house. Nice yard. Developed trees. Best decision ever.
When I built my McMansion in 2007 a GC told me they don’t build homes to last anymore because typically people move every 5-7 years so the construction is only solid enough for the first owner. Great….thanks builder for charging an outrageous price for sub par construction. The smaller home I bought after I sold the McM was built in 1957 and has more solid construction (tho I did love the floorplan of my McM we only lived in about 60% of that house…)
The movie The Big Short was an excellent journey thru the sub prime wickedness. Thanks for this vid, Chelsea🌺
We bought one house in 1983. 950 sq ft on a 40x60 lot. Originally it cost $118,000 then by 2017 it was valued at $500,000 and now it is valued at $950,000. The San Francisco Bay Area of course 😮 I moved to Thailand and built a 2,800 sq ft house for about $150,000.
The Simpsons only have that home because Homer's father sold his house and gave Homer the money. Also they are frequently shown as struggling with the mortgage.
While I positively loathed apartment living, I’m glad we have a smallish house. The kids get their own rooms but it isn’t a big open echo chamber or a nightmare to clean.
I agree. I wish more home building companies would build smaller new homes with better materials instead of giant homes with crappy materials.
We resisted the urge to "upgrade" back in the 80's. We bought a townhome, and now are comfortably retired debt free.
Excellent, excellent video. With this and the video on unions last week, TFD is on fire lately! I remember reading Sarah Susanka's The Not So Big House years ago, which was an appeal to put the money you have into details you will love about a house rather than sheer square footage.
When I went looking for a home in 2012 in San Antonio TX, I asked the sales guy to show me the smallest floor plan that they had. We love our 1556sq Sq ft home. Two kids, two small dogs and my wife. I never even once thought about buying a giant home. It's a one story too. Thanks for the video. Subscribed
I grew up a minute away from my primary third place-my martial arts studio-and that was awesome. Down with suburban sprawl, down with HOAs, down with lawns, and down with giant useless houses!
I traveled a lot by air for work, and when the plane was flying low preparing to land, I'd often look at the neighborhoods and saw many McMansion developments. To me a 4000-5000 square foot house looks so ridiculous on a postage stamp sized lot with all your neighbors looking into everyones backyard if not the windows. I often wonder about the mindset of the people who are attracted to this type of living. Your video shed some insights into my pondering. Thanks.
My Dad lives in a McMansion all by himself and I hate it so much. My mental health worsens when I stay there, and I feel far more depressed and isolated.
The one draw for a large home I see is all the space I would have for books.
I bought a McMansion after the last crash - TBH it was a bargain back then and is quite useful when you are working from home. I'll be selling it in the next year or two, pocketing the cash and build something more sensible in size with a bit more land to grow food.
The book The Sum of Us talks about loans and predatory banking practices. She doesn't talk about mcmansions, but how these banking practices were even more nefarious on the part of the banks and lenders than one might actually think (and I already thought it was pretty bad). The author would be a great person to interview for TFD.
I have a larger home (2800 sq ft). We mainly got because a smaller home was not cheaper . However i like the space since my mom now lives with us. I was hoping to have more kids and potentially foster kids too.
I never felt the need to buy a “McMansion” we live in the north east and we bought a cape cod style 1800 sqft home. We are blessed! I like character charm and history. Our home was built 130 years ago and you can still see the fireplace in the kitchen. I’ll never understand why people want new builds. I love owning a piece of history!
I'm not American, but having lived in smaller apartments and even individual rooms for over a decade now, I've noticed that my parents' house feels unnecessarily big whenever I visit - and their place is hardly at McMansion level. I hope to be able to buy my own place at some point in the not too distant future, but I really doubt if I'll buy a house. I live by myself, and the upkeep just seems like too much work, so I'd much prefer an apartment.
Also, I know this isn't the main point, but Americans on average buy multiple items of clothing A WEEK???? How does that even work???
Right? Buying clothes every week sounds like a shopping addiction problem. Well, we’ve been conditioned since childhood to be ‘consumers’ as that’s the shaky foundation our entire economy is built upon
I read once that Linda McCartney insisted their family live in a small home, so nobody could get away and interpersonal problems would need to be dealt with. Linda and Paul had a long, happy and productive marriage by any standard. Linda instinctively knew that excess doesn't usually work.
My spouse grew up in a very small farming community, with extended family on farms. They all got together and on big holidays would have the feast. I saw photos of them all in the aunt's house. It was no more than 700sq ft and it wasn't unusual to have 30 or 40 people of all ages together. Of note, everybody lived in these sorts of small homes. My MIL told me that everyone would bring their dishes and cutlery, food and family. Everyone ate in shifts, and cleaning was done as you went along. (and this without running water.) Kids played outside. Fond memories were kept of the fun and fellowship.
Myself, some of my strongest childhood memories are of going to my grandparent's homestead to visit on weekends. Always at least one or two cousins my age to play with, roam the woods and raid the garden with. My grandparents had a large posh home, but we always were in the summerhouse. It was probably about 350 sq ft, with a small kitchen area, a huge cast iron wood stove, a double bed where my grandparents slept, and a huge wood fired oven for baking bread accessed outside. I asked my Dad how they all fit in the summer house, and he told me that they lived in the big house! Something I'd never considered, lol.
Re: Lack of 3rd Spaces--There was a movie released in 1979 named "Over the Edge" that talks about a planned community with no real places for the teen population to go.
I shops for clothing like 3 times per year. Couldn’t imagine it being a weekly occurrence.
I worked in construction from 2000 - 2010. These cheap housing complexes that were put up in roughly a season had me shaking my head. We used to call them 90 day neighborhoods. I eventually moved out of my small urban apartment into a 1,036 sq ft single wide mobile on an acre in a rural area. The cost of living in this set up is like the cost of living in the early 1990’s. Except I have today’s average income. Winning ! 👍🏻
As a home owner my husband and I bought an 1800 sq foot home, 4 bedrooms (because we have two kids and a home office for a business I run) we have a perfect amount of room, however I have had aquanauts say that the house was small and cute..I have no idea why people want ginormous homes!!?? You have to clean it, air condition or heat it…it’s nuts! Unless you have a large amount of children..what are you doing?
McMansion-ism is alive and well in Texas, fueled (in part, but not entirely) by the current wave of people moving here from other parts of the country, who can afford a lot more house here than where they moved from - so they buy a lot more house. Not because they need it, but because they can afford it. And so smaller houses in existing neighborhoods are torn down to make room for giant homes, and farm land is sold to developers who build seas of huge cookie cutter houses - in gated "communities," sprawling forever outward from the urban areas.
This video should get shared everywhere.
My family of three lives in a suburban home around 2000 sqft plus a semi finished basement. More than plenty of space for us, yet my MIL thinks we should triple out mortgage to get a bigger house. Insanity! We already have more than we need. What is it about the American obsession with bigger is better?
Some American families try to be something like a society or a nation unto themselves? They would need a big space to pull that off.
Big houses, big cars, big churches, big cities, big everything.
Some people are just showoffs
Don’t forget big hair! The higher the hair, the closer you are to god!
Thanks so much for posting this! I’m not from the US and had no idea about this. Urban planning is often so badly done in the modern world! Like you say, they don’t even meet basic human needs like the need to take a walk or talk to your neighbors. But I guess if people have a massive lawn they have the illusion of “greenspace .”
I remember in the 90s, my family would sometimes discuss the illogic of people taking on too much debt to live in these big, tacky homes. We had a smaller, fixer-upper farm house in the "inner-city" that our family had paid off by the time of the GFC. The walkability was a big part of the quality of life we enjoyed growing up (albeit in a safe university town).
Content like this reminds me that the constant pressure to move my 2-person household into a larger home is inappropriate. We have 3 bedrooms and a bathroom with two vanities. We have a garden and a shed and a 1-car garage. *We don't need more strength or more ability or more opportunity. What we need is to use what we have.* Basil S. Walsh
My parents bought their 3 bedroom 1 bathroom , 980 square feet home in East Oakland in 1961 for $9500. It was already 43 years old, suffering from termite damage. But the $12,000 home around the block that was larger and in better condition could not be financed to my parents even under my dad's GI eligibility due to restrictive covenants in selling and finance. The owners of our home carried the more themselves. But they were being helped outto the suburbs financially by the government. Our home raised 5 children, had all 11 grandchildren walk across its floors and financed homes for a few family members. At times we had 7 people living in that house. I asked my mom while she was cleaning homes in swanky but restricted Trestle Glen why did only 2-3 people live in such large houses? "Because they think it makes them better than everyone else. " Only insecure people buy into this over consuming practice.