Census Report Reveals Housing Trends

In 1975, a gallon of gasoline cost 59 cents in California, you could get 10 first-class stamps for a buck, and video gaming was a $250 million industry. In 2005, California gas prices topped out at $3.06 per gallon, the price of a single stamp rose to 39 cents, and U.S. consumers spent a staggering $10.5 billion on video game systems, games, and accessories.

Yes, it's a different world.

Things have changed in the housing industry as well, according to “Characteristics of New Housing for 2005,” a report issued in June by the U.S. Census Bureau. The report, which can be found at www.census.gov/const/www/charindex.html, provides data on a number of housing features, dating back to 1973.

The report's major finding should come as no surprise: Homes built today are generally much bigger than those built years ago. “Thirty years ago, a 3,000-square-foot house was pretty impressive,” says Tony LaPelusa Sr., who founded LaPelusa Home Improvement, Niles, Ill., in 1964. “Now, it's nothing more than normal. It's certainly not big.”

The data referenced in this story and in the accompanying chart was not accumulated from every house in the country, but a significant sample of houses from all over the U.S.

Credit: Source: U.S. Census Bureau

The Census numbers back up LaPelusa's claim. The report doesn't list data for the number of houses built that size until 1988, when 16.6% of new single-family houses completed had at least 3,000 square feet of floor area. In 2005, that had nearly doubled (see chart), to 29.5%.

Although the data in the report is for new homes, it has implications for remodeling. The trend toward bigger homes is cultural, and there aren't any fundamental differences between new-home buyers and those who buy and live in existing homes. “Remodeling still follows the design and characteristics of home building,” says Tom Swartz, a 35-year industry veteran who has been at least part-owner of J.J. Swartz Co., in Decatur, Ill., since 1975.

That's not to say that houses today are cookie-cutter; quite the contrary, there's more variety than ever. “It used to be that people wanted to keep up with the Joneses,” says Tom Kelly, who took control of Neil Kelly Co., in Portland, Ore., in 1980. “Now they want to be different from the Joneses.” This one-upmanship, along with the trend of building bigger and more intricately, means that remodelers have been doing larger projects than ever before.

“We've put on some big additions,” says Jud Motsenbocker, who founded Jud Construction, Muncie, Ind., in 1968. “Some of these remodeling projects cost two and three times as much as the house cost to begin with.” That's a major change from before, when additions generally reflected the house upon which they were being built.

“The additions we put on houses 25 or 30 years ago were small, and on an as-needed basis,” Swartz says, estimating that 90% of the houses he remodeled in the early 1980s were smaller than 1,500 square feet. Now, with new homes being so much larger, the additions are proportionately larger — even on the older, smaller houses.