GTKY: SQFT Notions in Your Area

simplyelise · August 2015

DH and I live in a 1050 sqft 2BR/1Ba apartment. Recently when I mentioned to a friend that we probably wouldn't be buying a house before we try to have a baby, she was aghast. She could not hide her shock that we would try and raise a baby in such a small place!

But the home shows I watch in California (Flip or Flop, particularly) show that over in SoCal, 1500 sqft is a family-size home. Clearly this is not a standardized thing. So what's it look like in your neck of the woods for expected home sizes?

Here's my rough estimate in Missouri:

Small House: 1500 or less

Average Family House: 1800-2500

Considered BIG: Over 3000

vlagrl29 · August 2015

I live in Missouri as well. Our house is 1700 sq ft , but that doesn't include the basement.

cbee817 · August 2015

We're in NY, but not close to NYC. The vast majority of our homes have basements and are not part of the sq ft calculations.

1400 or less = small - typically 2-3 bed/1-1.5 bath homes

1401-2200 = average => we are here at 1,576 sq ft and a full basement. Typically 3-4 bed/2-2.5 bath

2201 - 3000 = large - 4 bed/2.5 bath at a minimum with usually 2 living spaces

3001+ = mini mansions - lots of older ones in the city and brand new builds way out in the suburbs. 4+bed/3+bath, office, 2 living spaces

als1982 · August 2015

I live in Kansas City but on the Kansas side. Our 3 bed/1 bath home is just shy of 1,000 square feet (excluding our unfinished basement and attic) which for our suburb is small but definitely not the smallest as there are lots of 2 bed/1 baths around us.

However, we live in a pretty unique area and the cost of our house per square foot could get you twice the house on the Missouri side or farther out into the suburbs.

ETA: We will definitely stay here if we have only one child but if we end up with two, we'll likely move. But that issue is less about the square footage and more about only having one toilet. We are minimalists, and find that we already have more space than necessary.

short+sassy · August 2015

That's an interesting question I never really thought about. I think a 1050 sq ft apartment with two bedrooms is plenty of room for a couple and a baby.

I've lived in both So. CA and currently NOLA. My estimates are about the same for both areas, but are very different than yours on the "small house" end.

Small House: 900 (maybe 1000) sq ft.

Average Family House: 1100-2000 sq ft

Large House: 2000-4000 sq ft

Mansion: 4000+ sq ft

I base my numbers on, in my area, there are tons of 3 bedroom homes that are only 1000-1200 square feet. The kitchen won't be huge at that square footage, but it will be serviceable. The master bedroom will probably be the same size as the other bedrooms. But it's still a 3 bedroom house that parents with two kids could live comfortably in and each child would even have their own room.

I also think once 3-bedroom houses start getting more into the 1500 sq ft range, they typically do have large kitchens and larger masters.

To me, 1500 sq ft feels like a huge living space...but then I also don't have any kids and it is just me and my H. Our side of the house we currently live in is about 1150 sq ft. I'd like to have a bit more room than that, though some of it is the layout isn't ideal, but overall it's fine. We love it and have no plans to move.

brij2006 · August 2015

We live in small town USA in very rural Illinois.

Small = <1,000 sq ft

Average = 1,500-3,000

Large = >3,000

Our home is a bit over 3,000 sq ft, but we bought it as a foreclosure for $49k. So yeah...

There are a lot of old homes that need renovating, and you can find those for less than $70k (minimum 2 bed, 1 bath). Houses that are newer or fully remodeled go for $100-150k (minimum 3 bed, 2 bath).

bmo88 · August 2015

I live in Colorado. We own a 2,800 sq ft home with 3 bed rooms, 2.5 baths and an unfinished basement (capacity to build one more bedroom, bathroom and an activities area). I feel like it is too big for us now, but we really didn't find too many homes that were much smaller. 75% of homes in our area have basements, so for resale it makes sense to buy a home with a basement. Once we have children, it will probably feel less empty in areas of the home.

Small House: 900 sq ft or less, but only found in the much older parts of town (1800-early 1900's built homes)

Average Family House: 1500-3000 sq ft

Considered BIG: Over 3500 sq ft

Xstatic3333 · August 2015

simplyelise said:
DH and I live in a 1050 sqft 2BR/1Ba apartment. Recently when I mentioned to a friend that we probably wouldn't be buying a house before we try to have a baby, she was aghast. She could not hide her shock that we would try and raise a baby in such a small place!

But the home shows I watch in California (Flip or Flop, particularly) show that over in SoCal, 1500 sqft is a family-size home. Clearly this is not a standardized thing. So what's it look like in your neck of the woods for expected home sizes?

Here's my rough estimate in Missouri:

Small House: 1500 or less
Average Family House: 1800-2500
Considered BIG: Over 3000

I think this is similar to attitudes here in RI. Our home is 1,300 sf, but the space is very well used so it should be plenty for 1-2 kids once we add a second bathroom in the basement. We are also minimalists, and I would much rather have money to spend on travel and experiences than a huge house and accompanying mortgage. That said, most of my friends with kids prefer a house in the 2,000 sf range, and I'm not actually a parent yet, so I may change my mind.

simplyelise · August 2015

I DEFINITELY agree that our apartment is large enough for us and a baby.

Jealous of all the basements. They are the norm where I grew up, but my town has some weird soil issues, so solid, no-issues-with-foundation, basements are hard to find here. Lot's of split levels though...

hoffse · August 2015

We're about the same as you guys. Small - 1500 or less, Average - 1501-2500, Big - 2501+

Our house has 1900 sq ft on the first floor with another 900 finished in the basement. For listing purposes, our basement doesn't "count" but for practical purposes it definitely does. Our house is way too big for two people, but it's a comfortable size when we have family over, and I imagine kids will fill the space up too. Our upper floor has 3 bedrooms, and the basement has another bedroom and (small) full bath. The main guest room is actually larger than the master, and that was the room that sold the house for us. We figure that two kids should easily be able to share in a room that size, so regardless of our kids vs. house timeline, we should always be able to preserve a dedicated guest room and a dedicated office in this house. We really need both because our families always spend the night when they visit, and we need a home office for our jobs. We don't really know how long we will stay here, but we didn't want to feel squeezed out with kids.

I don't love our basement yet because it's pretty much a dumping ground for stuff we still need to donate, and the whole space is pretty shabby. But our plan is to do some very cheap sprucing up down there next year using some leftover paint we have from other projects and moving some mismatched furniture down there once we get a few more key pieces for the upstairs. I think with kids it will be a huge blessing to have that space, because the entire area is tiled. They can make a mess down there, and it's just not a big deal.

Our house is a standard ranch that's been added onto off the back. We do use all of the space on the upper floor except for the front living room, which was the "formal" living space back when that was a thing. That's not super useful for us except when people come over.

I do love having a separate breakfast nook and larger dining room that can hold more people. That has come in handy more than expected.

I also like that our kitchen is not open to the rest of the house. When we started our house hunt I was all about the open floor plan (thank you, HGTV), but we ended up going with a more closed floor plan, and I REALLY love it. H does too. We don't really hear kitchen noises from our family room, and I can't see any kitchen mess from the couch. I thought I had to have an island or a bar or whatever, but I really don't. It would just be more surface to clean, and H and I would rather eat at a table where we can face each other, rather than eating at a bar where we are sitting side-by-side.

hoffse · August 2015

The price per square foot is also going to vary hugely. We could have doubled our square footage for the same price if we were willing to move another 20 min outside of the city.

I'm glad we didn't. It would have been more than we would ever need, and a longer commute. We bought up to the amount of space we thought would be comfortable for us plus 2 hypothetical kids. Then we can choose to stay or move based on considerations other than space.

My parents and their best friends are coming to stay this weekend, and our house can comfortably sleep 6 adults with their own room/bathroom. Whenever I think it's too big right now, I think about times like this, and I'm grateful we didn't go smaller. But whenever I clean, I'm happy we didn't go bigger.

Re: basements - I would not buy a house without one. That was a deal-breaker for me. We get tornadoes here, and I wanted something below ground-level just so we could feel safe. I didn't really care finished vs. unfinished, but I was not going to buy a house on a slab, even if the rest of it was perfect.

lbonga1 · August 2015

I live in SoCal about 20 minutes north of San Diego County. We live in a 1050 sq. ft. 1 bedroom plus den. The den is basically a second bedroom, just without a closet. I have a 2.5 year old and a 1 year old. I think when I just had one child, it was fine, but since my younger daughter became mobile, it's felt a bit cramped. Really I just wish our living room and kitchen were bigger because that's where we spend most of our time. When we buy a home I would like it in the 1800-2500 sq. ft. range, and we plan on having one more baby.

Xstatic3333 · August 2015

It's interesting to hear that basements aren't the norm everywhere! Here in New England I'm not sure I've ever encountered a house without one.

cbee817 · August 2015

Xstatic3333 said:

It's interesting to hear that basements aren't the norm everywhere! Here in New England I'm not sure I've ever encountered a house without one.

This is for us too- the only ones that don't have it are new condo builds/patio homes around here. I can't imagine not having one- it's so nice for storage!

als1982 · August 2015

Xstatic3333 said:
It's interesting to hear that basements aren't the norm everywhere! Here in New England I'm not sure I've ever encountered a house without one.

We have one now, but growing up neither my parents or grandparents had them, and we lived in rural Kansas!

simplyelise · August 2015

hoffse said:

The price per square foot is also going to vary hugely. We could have doubled our square footage for the same price if we were willing to move another 20 min outside of the city.

I'm glad we didn't. It would have been more than we would ever need, and a longer commute. We bought up to the amount of space we thought would be comfortable for us plus 2 hypothetical kids. Then we can choose to stay or move based on considerations other than space.

My parents and their best friends are coming to stay this weekend, and our house can comfortably sleep 6 adults with their own room/bathroom. Whenever I think it's too big right now, I think about times like this, and I'm grateful we didn't go smaller. But whenever I clean, I'm happy we didn't go bigger.

Re: basements - I would not buy a house without one. That was a deal-breaker for me. We get tornadoes here, and I wanted something below ground-level just so we could feel safe. I didn't really care finished vs. unfinished, but I was not going to buy a house on a slab, even if the rest of it was perfect.

Yeah, we are definitely at high risk for tornadoes. DH is from a town a stones throw from Joplin, so we are even more serious about it following the 2011 tornado there. My dream is to still get a house here with a basement, but they are just not in large supply in this town. And many of the houses with basements have serious foundation issues.

My compromise is that if we end up getting a slab or split level with partial basement, we will get a stormshelter. You can get a decent size underground shelter for a couple thousand.

We should have our 20% DP saved by March 2018 and we'll have our apartment until July 31, 2018, so hopefully that large window will mean we can wait for a house with a basement.

short+sassy · August 2015

Xstatic3333 said:

It's interesting to hear that basements aren't the norm everywhere! Here in New England I'm not sure I've ever encountered a house without one.

Actually, in the two places I've lived, homes basically can't have basements.

In So CA, you can't have basements because of earthquakes.

In NOLA, you REALLY can't have basements because the ground under us has a high water content. You can't even bury people in the ground because there is enough of a water table they can pop back up. The first settlers learned that the hard way! Outside of cremating, we use above ground mausoleums instead.

AprilZ81 · August 2015

Square footage is going to vary greatly depending on suburb vs city, old vs new. In central Ohio less that 1500 is small, 1500-2500 average and above 2500 large.

Our last house was 1600 sq ft (no basement) and while we *could* have had kids in that house it would have been a tight squeeze and we would have had to get rid of either the guest room or home office. There was no yard and in a horrible school district so we moved a year ago in prep for starting our family.

Our house now is 4 bed, 2.5 bath with a (mostly) finished basement. The house is great for entertaining because the family room is huge and we have a formal living and formal dining area for overflow space. Four bedrooms was high on our wish list so we can have two kids and keep a guest room for parents to visit.

bridejl · August 2015

Our one-story ranch is 1720sq.ft., which I think is mid-range and slightly uncommon for our city (suburban Wisconsin). During our house search 2 years ago we found many smaller houses in our price range, and the out of price range houses were 2000+ sq.ft, 2-story homes.

The size of our home feels big, but comfortable, right now, although there is definitely room to grow with children. That was the plan with buying a home of this size. But we do have current uses for the extra 2 bedrooms (an office, as well as a guest room for family overnight stays).

We also have a full basement - I would never, ever, buy a home without a basement because storms freak me out.

CuriousKiddosMama · August 2015

In the Houston area. We definitely don't have basements as the water table is too high here.

A small house is probably 900-1600
Average would be around 1800-3000
And big is anything over 3000.
This is just my guess though. Up until recently (we are in a housing boom) building was so cheap that houses are bigger here than what I'm used to growing up in the mid west.

MommyLiberty5013 · August 2015

My sister and her DH just had a DS in June. They live in downtown Seattle and have the baby in their one bedroom apartment. I don't know how many square feet it is, but it's definitely less than 1,200. So, with an infant, you can totally live with them in a small space. THis isn't impossible. They have very little toys at this age and they aren't moving yet, so it's a non-issue, really.

simplyelise · August 2015

MommyLiberty5013 said:

My sister and her DH just had a DS in June. They live in downtown Seattle and have the baby in their one bedroom apartment. I don't know how many square feet it is, but it's definitely less than 1,200. So, with an infant, you can totally live with them in a small space. THis isn't impossible. They have very little toys at this age and they aren't moving yet, so it's a non-issue, really.

Agree completely. My brother and his wife share a maybe 1500 sqft home with two children and only one bath and it's just fine. The friend that made the comment in the OP is a brand new newlywed who had been long-distance only before marriage. Now she's struggling with space issues with the new husband. And to top that off she's baby-crazy. So of course she wants a house asap.

brij2006 · August 2015

simplyelise said:

MommyLiberty5013 said:

My sister and her DH just had a DS in June. They live in downtown Seattle and have the baby in their one bedroom apartment. I don't know how many square feet it is, but it's definitely less than 1,200. So, with an infant, you can totally live with them in a small space. THis isn't impossible. They have very little toys at this age and they aren't moving yet, so it's a non-issue, really.

Agree completely. My brother and his wife share a maybe 1500 sqft home with two children and only one bath and it's just fine. The friend that made the comment in the OP is a brand new newlywed who had been long-distance only before marriage. Now she's struggling with space issues with the new husband. And to top that off she's baby-crazy. So of course she wants a house asap.

Haha. I would prefer to live in a 2bed/1bath apartment right now with our 6 month old. Neither one of us have time to clean or maintain our house plus work our 50+ hours/week at our jobs. Less to care for would be best with a newborn.

Mustard76 · August 2015

We're currently in Missouri and we live in an 1800 sq ft 3 bd/2.5 bath apartment. We've only been here for a little over a year and had zero interest in purchasing a home here, so I don't know what is considered average here. In New Mexico, we owned a 3200 sq ft 4 bd/3 bath house. That was large for the metro area, but average-large for our suburb. It was a lot of space, but since we've been so far from our families, when people visit, they stay for extended periods. I like having space for them to have of their own.

Side note: H and I will never live in another place where we have to share a bathroom. Our apartment when we first moved in NM was 2 bd/1 bath. Never again. Never.

SmrBrd2012 · August 2015

This is kind of biased by my own home search and price range but I live near a huge metro area with lots of older (somewhat smaller) homes and a huge amount of condos so I would consider:

small: <1000 sq ft
medium: 1000-1600
large: 1600+

FTR, my husband and I live with our 3 month old in a condo slightly over 1100 sq feet. It's certainly not huge but it's 3 bedrooms and will keep us happy for at least the next 5 years or so.

AprilZ81 · August 2015

Another thing to keep in mind is the layout. You can have 1500 sq ft and it feel spacious or it can be cramped depending on how rooms are laid out.

vlagrl29 · August 2015

If we ever move again I would want the same amount of bed/baths that we have now - just a more open floor plan with the living/dining/kitchen and more sq ft in the bedrooms.

dragonstarjk · August 2015

I don't know if this is the reality in our area, but this is how it is in my head:

Small=less than 1200 sq ft

Average=1500-2500 sq ft

Big=3000+ sq ft

Our house is just under 1100 sq ft. We are not planning to have children, but we always said if we did that we would definitely want a bigger house. Like somebody else said, it depends on the layout. We have an awesome kitchen but that takes up practically a 1/3 of the house, so the bedrooms are tiny. We actually bought it as a 3-br. but converted it to 2 because the size of the rooms was so impractical.

Frugalmama2009 · August 2015

Small/starter home : 1100 to 1600 sq ft
Move up home: 1600 to 2600 sq ft
Anything over 2600 is called estate.
We plan on staying in our 1450 sq ft starter home as it was 400,000k. It is fully developed so the basement adds another 500 sq ft at least.

BlueBirdMB · August 2015

I'm in NH, so houses are pretty big here. I wouldn't know where to look for this info, but I go to people's houses all day long for work, so I have a pretty good idea.

Small: less than 1,600 sq ft

Average: 1,800-2,200 sq ft

Bigger than average, but not mansion worthy: 2,400-3,200 sq ft

Mansions: I guess over 3,200 sq ft, but I really notice a difference after 3,500 sq ft in the level of house.

Our house is 2,700 sq ft and we paid $325,000 and we live in one of the more expensive parts of the state, just to give everyone an idea.

GTKY: SQFT Notions in Your Area

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