According to mansionglobal.com, "the average size of a residence across the country has increased by more than 70% in the past century." Yet, a century ago, average household size in America was over four people per dwelling and at the present time is around 2.6 people per dwelling, so while our household size has been shrinking, our homes have increased substantially in size. Perhaps another way of looking more fairly at the increase in size in our homes is that we live in a more modern time, which is far wealthier in aggregate, and more appreciative of the modern day conveniences that we need, so that rather than seeing our homes simply as a place to lay down our head at the end of our working day, it represents a place that will have a family room, a nice big kitchen, plenty of storage space, garage, yard, separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms, guest bedrooms, room for our pets, and so forth, so that all of these extras and accouterments in aggregate just end up needing more space.
While it is one thing entirely to aspire to buying a big house or a house that is nicely sized, the fact of the matter is, bigger houses cost more money to build, and therefore costs more money to buy. For instance, in America, there is a huge amount of choice in the automobiles that we purchase, to which many auto dealers make it a point of pride to try to get you into "more" car than what you really need by convincing you that you actually deserve it, when the more pertinent issues should be, is this the car that will actually be both within my budget and will provide the basic functionality that I require. So too, lost in the noise of a bigger house, is the fact that the bigger the house, the bigger the home insurance, the home repair, the furniture required, the utility expenditures, and possibly your commute time.
Again, all of these things are fine to a certain extent, especially if you can realistically afford to buy the subject home, however, often not considered seriously enough is the fact that savings are absolutely correlated with expenditures both mandatory and discretionary, along with your income. This means that buying more house than you really need will make a material difference in your ability to save the money required for a successful retirement, and while it is probably true that all things being equal a larger house with more bells and whistles will provide a slightly higher degree of happiness, the thing is, all things aren't equal, that is to say, by purchasing that house, you could conceivably be sacrificing thousands upon thousands of dollars of money that could have been set aside for your nest egg, needed for retirement, investment, and emergency situations.
What too many people fail to recognize is the housing size that so many Americans aspire to, is something that has been subtly programmed into their minds over an extended period of time, so that so often they really do believe that they need that large house when they really do have smaller options that could be utilized effectively instead. The bottom line is that builders of homes need buyers and they wouldn't build what they build if they didn't feel confident that the buyers would come. However, the main reason that a standard mortgage for a home is thirty years is that the price of the home is so much money, so that therefore the only way to break that down into "reasonable" monthly payments is to extend the life of the loan to 360 long months. If more people truly understood that thirty years is an incredibly long period of time to commit to in order to actually own their home free and clear, they might be incentivized to take a more practical look at a home size that would fill their needs, cost them significantly less money, and allow them to save more.