What is the thing with the tiny apartments?

Look at it from the other side. How big of a place to we really, really need?

In most places around the world, people live in fairly small apartments and houses. My house is fairly small… 2 bedrooms, approx 1,300 sq/ft and its more than sufficient for me and even when my daughter visits.

Not everyone feels that they need to live in a MacMansion.

The average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s; it now stands at 2,349 square feet. So imagine, the average size house back in your parent’s day, was just over 1,150 square feet!!!

It was normal in America to have one bathroom. Kids shared the same bedroom.

Thankfully, in the wake of the housing crisis, the size of new homes has begun to fall. On average since 2009, sizes have dropped on average 100 square feet.

People are waking up and realizing the cost to cool and heat large palatial homes don’t fit with the kinds of salaries the new job landscape are offering these days. When your electricity bill starts approaching a quarter or more of the size of your mortgage, you begin to realize something is wrong. When it’s summer, my bill gets close to $300 per month. I shudder to think what it costs to cool a house 2 or 3 times the one of my size.

With the downturn in sizes, things are getting more efficient as well. Lots of people turned up their noses at LED and Fluorescent lighting for a long time. Well, when you can decrease the cost of your electricity bill by 30% by switching, that changes a lot of minds. Today it is hard to find a house with old style incandescent lighting.

The same this is happening with SUV sales. High gas prices and environmental concerns have decimated light truck and sport-utility vehicle (SUV) sales volumes since 2007. Automakers are responding to consumers’ environmental concerns by offering expanded hybrid and crossover-utility vehicle offerings.

America is on a downsize tear. It’s time you started too.