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Permalink Like Dislike I see lots houses in the Bay Area are 3 bedroom and 2 bathrooms (which are fine). Then the square footage is 1200.
Like this one,
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/475-Northaven-Dr-Daly-City-CA-94015/15473710_zpid/
Is really that small? or the owner builds lots rooms just not reporting.
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xenogear3:
You must not be from around here. Or else if you are you grew up in and never left a privileged wealthy enclave in the region.
Another way of asking the question is, "are homes outside of the Bay Area really that big?"
1200 3/2 SF dwelling is livin' large by the standards of most urbanite people in the world; even to urban folks in wealthy societies like Europe, Japan.
Americans are just too materialistic.
Imagine if Americans confined ourselves to 1200 3/2; we would not have such supersized mortgages borrowed to pay for such supersized homes, with supersized interest payments and supersized utility bills to heat and cool our supersized homes; without superrsized space in our supersized homes to store our supersized accumulation of Chinamade junk; less supersized filling of the supersized pallets at supersized Costco or supersized Walmart would mean less supersized trade deficit with supersized Communist China.
Another aspect, the Bay Area has superb weather. For many from all sorts of demographics, the house is just a place to sleep, shower, cook, eat, and for students, to do studying and homework.
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Looking at the FSBO I was checking out I see :)
Homes around here that are detached have much more scalability in terms of floor plan. The rooms are probably smaller than your standards, but it is the norm here.
If you check out San Francisco where most homes are stuck next to each other, you can probably have 1500 sq feet, but still only have 2 bedrooms. A bedroom without a window is not really a bedroom to my standards. It is also not in compliance with codes.
The lots around here are usually from 25' to 35' wide, by 100' deep.
Any home that claims a high square footage around here (1400-1500+) probably includes a finished basement.
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Poway, CA
middleman's website
I've always been happy in my home of 1280 sq ft. I have a wife and three kids. The layout is great and having less space means I acquire less junk. Big houses don't impress me one bit - it seems they are nothing but a lot of unused space. I prefer a yard.
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Saint George, UT
elliemae's website
I live in a 1700 sqft place on an acre +. I figured it out, I could live in 500 sqft and do just fine as long as I have the acre part of it.
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Alexandria, VA
Official size is called "Above Grade Living Area Total SqFt", which does not includs unfinished space and ground level. So, you can assume wooden deck, unfinished garage and basement space is not inclued.
Yeah, I think 1200 sqft is still little small for SFH though, that could be adequate for a small family. Something I don't like about homes inside the city like san diego is the fact those home usually built on small lot. There's not much space you can call backyard.
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i'm with middleman. My place was at one time a 3/2 now a 2+den/family room. It's 1400sqft on a 7800sqft lot. It's pretty average for 1950s Orange County homes. For 2 people, 1400sqft is pretty darn big. The main bedroom is 12x13 and the other is 11x12 so they are not huge but comfortably fit a king size bed. No walk in closets though.
We also have a 574sqft garage (almost 3 car) that is not including in living space but there is a room built in there that is going to be my workshop.
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sybrib, can you leave politics out the discussion here? if you don't like Chinese made goods, don't buy it then, see how long you can last in your supersized ego
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sawsare says
It's actually interesting that he was talking about being against Chinese made goods. Had all jobs been allocated back into the USA, then housing prices would rise as there are more wages to pay for mortgages.
Currently, with all the Chinese made goods, it means that there are less wages in the USA to pay for mortgages; which means prices of homes need to go down - which they have not.
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Redwood City, CA
I think a lot of the newer homes in the bay area are larger in general. It's just that the 1920-1970's seem to be ranch style, with about 1200sq/f.
Forget about the 1200sq/f homes, you must have missed the homes that were 600sq/f, and on 2500sq/f lots, or less :)
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sybrib, can you leave politics out the discussion here? if you don't like Chinese made goods, don't buy it then, see how long you can last in your supersized ego
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44 male
Egg Harbor City, NJ
My first house was 850 sq ft and with the additional space with the basement, it was big enough for me. I might still be living there if it wasn't in a less than desireable area (and I didn't get married). My In my new house, the garage alone is more than 850 sq feet, and it has an unfinshed upstairs that's around 600 sq ft. Having all the extra space is really nice, but I really don't utilize it. I have a basement that's over 1,000 sq ft, but only have 10 boxes of Xmas decorations down there. I have a formal dining room that only gets used for company, a game room and several bedrooms that I rare go into. If I were to total up all the rooms I actually use on a daily bases, it would be around the 2,000 sq ft range and it would only be that much because the rooms are so big. The master bedroom is larger than two standard sized bedrooms (something like 10x20) the kitchen and living rooms are over sized too.
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My two-person apartment in Tokyo is 400 square feet, and there's a family of three next door in the same sized space. It's mostly couples or two-roommate pairs in my building, but I think there are a few families of four also.
Very, very few families in urban Japan have more than about 800 square feet. I think Hong Kong is similar.
What bothers me when I see that Zillow page is the small-by-urban-standards ratio of livable area to lot size: 1180/3400! The anti-automobile activist in me looks at the picture and wishes they could build another whole house on that empty space in the front, rather than waste it on parking spaces!
Tokyo is just as earthquake-prone as SF, but they still manage a 300% indoor-area-to-lot-size ratio even for SFHs. That's nearly ten times what this "small" house has.
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Having moved from Oklahoma my wife and I have had to go through an adjustment period. We currently live in a 1,046 sq ft 3/2/2. The living space is fine but the closets are tiny - that's where we struggle (I'm married w/ a 70lb dog and 2 cats, no kids). We have multiple hobbies that require a lot of equipment so closet space is at a premium (SCUBA diving, backpacking, motorcycles, surfing, skiing, shooting, sewing/quilting, etc).
We figure 1,400 sq ft would be perfect for us, even if/when we have a kid. The bigger the house the more it costs to maintain, heat/cool, taxes, etc.
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I am renting a 1600sqft house in TX and it is honestly way too much space (live with fiancee, no kids, 1 cat 1 dog). Coming to Bay Area CA soon and looking forward to "squeezing" into a 1000-1200sqft house again. :-)