Sometime in the mid-1980s, many home buyers and some builders really bought into the “your home is your castle” meme (before there was even such a thing as memes). The housing landscape began to include some large homes on small plots with all sorts of mismatched architectural styles that came to be called “McMansions.”
The people who bought these homes back in the day have now probably raised their families and may want to unload their property with an eye to buying something smaller, perhaps even in a sunnier part of the country (or the world). But does anyone today want to buy these homes?
Researchers at Realtor.com looked at the nation’s largest 150 metro areas to determine which had the largest percentage of homes for sale with more than 3,000 square feet of living space (that’s only slightly larger than today’s average new family home of about 2,700 square feet).
Here is a list of the 10 metro areas with the largest number of homes for sale with more than 3,000 square feet of space. The researchers limited the list to just one metro per state; otherwise, Utah and Colorado would have placed five cities among the top 10.
- Provo, Utah: A relatively small metro where 71% of homes listed for sale have more than 3,000 square feet of living space. That’s 971 listings.
- Denver, Colorado: Much larger than Provo, there were 3,115 listings for houses of more than 3,000 square feet, about 61% of all homes listed for sale.
- Bridgeport, Connecticut: More than half (53%) of home listings in this city offer 3,000 square feet of space. That’s some 2,416 homes for sale. The median listing price for all homes in Bridgeport is $735,000.
- Charlotte, North Carolina: The city is a financial center and the metro area listings include some 3,287 listings with more than 3,000 square feet of space. That’s about 43% of all listings.
- Indianapolis, Indiana: Some 41% of homes in the Indianapolis metro have more than 3,000 square feet of space. That’s about 3,639 listings.
- Dallas, Texas: There are nearly 9,000 McMansion-sized properties for sale in the Dallas metro, representing about 40% of all listings.
- Oxnard-Thousand Oaks, California: While the number of listed homes with 3,000 square feet of space is relatively small (717) that total represents 37% of all listings for the Los Angeles suburb. The median listing price here is $699,000.
- Minneapolis, Minnesota: More than a third (36%) of listings in the Minneapolis metro have more than 3,000 square feet of space. That’s 2,707 properties listed for sale.
- Portland, Oregon: About 2,223 homes with more than 3,000 square feet of space are listed for sale here. But you better hurry; the city council is considering a plan that would limit the size of new homes in the city to 2,500 square feet.
- Seattle, Washington: About a third (34%) of Seattle area home listings have more than 3,000 square feet of space. That’s 1,018 properties.
Visit the Realtor.com website for more details and information about these metro areas.
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