Over the last decade, average new home sizes in America have steadily grown after nearly a century of shrinking ground footprints. While fluctuating demographic needs, lifestyle adjustments, and improved construction techniques all enable today’s inclination toward larger square footage, buyers also simply expect more creature comforts. Exploring the most common motivations among new home shoppers that partner with a luxury home builder like those from Jamestown Estate Homes means we gain insight into this expanding direction.
Multi-Generational Households
The inevitability of parents and their adult children co-habiting under the same roof rises as both aging Baby Boomers and their millennial kids face economic uncertainties. Whether helping with grandparents needing daily caregiving or affording housing amid skyrocketing prices, combining families saves costs and provides mutual support. Already complex dynamics get amplified when crammed inside typical older homes with confined common areas.
Hence the appeal of new constructions with private multi-generational suites allowing independence yet closeness. Luxury builders increasingly field custom floor plans incorporating separate wings/levels for grandparents, an apartment-style carriage house apartment over the garage for adult children’s families, or at minimum a secluded bonus room with full bath for live-in relatives. The only way to prevent friction remains physically allowing breathing room, achievable through expansive square footage.
Leisure Lifestyles
Once considered only necessary for large broods, today’s luxury home buyers covet ample space for pursuing cherished hobbies, entertaining friends and extended family, and displaying travel mementoes regardless of actual household size. Open floor plans keep cooking, conversation, kid homework, and TV visible together yet out of each other’s way. Tranquil reading nooks, craft spaces, billiards halls, and wine cellars delight singular passions unique to each resident. Especially as more people work from home, extra territory ensures no activity gets neglected in the bustle.
Outdoor Integration
Builders also tout increased sensitivity toward integrating interior home life with the outdoors as a license to stretch footprints. Luxury outdoor kitchens approach replication of complete indoor meal prep zones with their posh cabinetry, top-of-the-line grilling equipment with multiple fuel options, refrigeration, and often adjacent dining space. Fire pits or fireplaces add special ambiance for evening relaxation under the stars. Add a negative edge custom pool and there is minimal need to ever go inside.
Smart homes allow controlling many environmental factors electronically from mobile apps, like speakers pumping out your personalized playlists, mood lighting, security cameras, or even dropping screens from poolside cabanas at the push of a button. Technology makes once strictly interior comforts accessible outside, blurring lines on where rooms end.
Future-Proofing Options
New construction also entices buyers with the capacity to easily make additions later as needs or wants arise simply by starting bigger now. Creating architectural plans that incorporate logical structural reinforcements or pre-laid utility connections avoids cumbersome retrofits down the road whether your family grows, or you just crave more space.
For instance, incorporating steel beam supports and tie-ins while framing allows seamlessly augmenting a second floor atop spaces like garages or storage sheds into full standalone guest quarters or a maternal suite without remodeling the entire footprint. Running plumbing and electrical preemptively speeds things along nicely when the time comes to get building.
Conclusion
Considering the flexibility of modern floor plans to accommodate diverse family needs, hobbies, indoor/outdoor living, and future growth, it’s easy to see why new homes are getting bigger. People today simply expect more from their homes than shelter alone. Builders make it possible to manifest grand visions of expansive yet functional spaces catering to exactly how their owners wish to live, work, and play under one roof. And as long as buyers’ aspirations continue to grow, average new home sizes will likely swell in proportion too. More square footage directly translates to more customized luxury.
