Housing
The Most Easily Misinterpreted Chart on the Future of the Housing Market
After six years of decline, more architects now report designing larger homes. But that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means.
The super-sized single family home was the touchstone of the housing boom in the early and mid 2000s. But when new home building peaked and the market started to tumble toward the end of the decade, the big house became the emblem for what went wrong: too many people being given too many loans for too-big houses that were too far beyond their means.
So it wasn't totally surprising that ever since 2006, the average size of new homes started shrinking. According to the latest survey results from the American Institute of Architects, however, bigger homes are coming back.