New research suggests that the trend toward downsizing in the US will continue even after the economy recovers:
After many years of dramatically increasing home size in America – from an average of 983 square feet in the 1950s up to 2300 square feet in the 2000s, despite declining household sizes - the trend appears finally to be going in the other direction. The real estate research firm Trulia found in 2010, for example, that the median "ideal home size" for Americans had declined to around 2100 square feet. More than one-third of survey respondents reported that their ideal preference was lower than 2000 square feet. … Data from the census are also consistent in direction with those from Trulia's survey, though more subtle in the degree of change: according to the census, the median size of a new U.S. home in 2010 was 2,169 square feet, up from 1,525 sqare feet in 1973 but down from the 2007 peak of 2,277 square feet.
Chart from Dylan Matthews.
The Dish 
