HOUSTON — (By Dale King, Realty News Report) – Though your home might have felt a bit cramped this season when friends and family came to stay for their annual holiday visits, the intensity of that constriction likely differed from dwelling to dwelling, depending on where your house is located and when it was built.
Realtor.com has just issued a report stating that the total number of extra bedrooms in homes across the nation these days has reached the highest level ever – going back at least to when the U.S. Census was first taken.
The research data says that as of 2023, the number of extra bedrooms in U.S. residences had reached 31.9 million, up from 31.3 million the year before and more than four times the 7 million extra sleeping spaces found in American homes back in the 1980s.
The report defines a home as having an “excess bedroom” if the number of overall sleep chambers minus the number of residents in the home minus one is greater than zero. (The “minus one” considers the possibility of a home office.)
Realtor.com’s analysis says extra bedrooms are more commonly found in homes located in the Mountain West and South, where land is plentiful and residences are often built with more square footage and larger floor plans.
On the other hand, dwellings in densely populated urban areas where land is scarcer and more costly tend to have fewer extra bedrooms, reflecting the higher demand for space-efficient living and affordability.
The Realtor.com report also found that the share of all bedrooms that could be considered as “extra” has also reached a record high of 8.8 percent. This is up from 8.7 percent in 2022 – and more than twice the 3.5 percent rate logged in 1980.
The record–high number and share of excess bedrooms in the U.S. is driven by both an increase in the number of bedrooms per home and a decline in the number of persons per household.
The 10 markets with the highest share of total bedrooms that could be considered excess are:
Ogden, Utah (12.2 percent)
Colorado Springs (12.1 percent)
Salt Lake City (12 percent)
Memphis (11.8 percent)
Atlanta (11.6 percent)
Cleveland (11.3 percent)
Wichita (11.3 percent)
Columbia, S.C. (10.8 percent)
Charleston, S.C. (10.7 percent)
Jackson, Miss. (10.7 percent)
The 10 markets with the lowest share of total bedrooms that could be considered excess are:
Miami (5.9 percent)
Sarasota (6.4 percent)
New York City (6.5 percent)
Los Angeles (6.6 percent)
New Haven (6.7 percent)
Worcester, Mass. (6.9 percent)
Stockton, Calif. (6.9 percent)
Bakersfield, Calif (7 percent)
Urban Honolulu (7 percent)
Providence, R.I (7.1 percent)
“During the holidays we often feel the need for more room, especially for guests,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “However, we are in a golden age of extra bedrooms.”
“Since the 1980s, we have seen the average number of bedrooms per home increase, and maybe more importantly, the number of persons per household has declined, creating an environment where we see both the largest number of extra bedrooms and the largest share of extra bedrooms, even with Americans using spare rooms as offices.”
But are houses getting bigger? “Not exactly,” Hale said. “While there has been an increase in the average number of bedrooms per home over the past 50 years, the increase rose just slightly from an average of 2.5 rooms in 1970 to 2.8 rooms in 2023.”
“The more significant factor is a declining number of persons per household, falling from a high of 3.1 persons living in the average American domicile in 1970 to a record low of 2.5 persons per household in 2023.”
In the United States, the average number of children under 18 per family in 2023 was 1.94. This is a decrease from 1960, when the average was 2.33 children per family, according to Statista.
The Realtor.com report also found a correlation between homes in high-end and lower-priced markets and the share of total bedrooms that could be considered excess.“This is relatively easy to understand,” she said. “All things being equal, it is likely easier for households to afford an extra bedroom in cheaper market locations than in more expensive regions.”
A typical two-person household, for example, probably has a better chance of being able to afford a four-bedroom home in Ogden than it would in New York City.
Hale said that for the analysis that yielded the report, “we gathered data on household inhabitants and bedrooms from the U.S. American Community Survey (ACS) nationally and for the 100 largest metro areas between 1970 and 2023.”
Dec. 30, 2024 Realty News Report Copyright 2024
Photo: Cynthia Lescalleet, CALpix Copyright 2024, Realty News Report
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