It's a big house they want, after all

Although tiny houses make good television, apparently Americans still want bigger homes.

At least that's what Trulia, the real estate search engine, found in its latest check on the desires of today's home buyers.

"Size matters," said Ralph McLaughlin, Trulia's chief economist.

"Last year, 43 percent of Americans told us they would like a larger home," McLaughlin said, with the desire to upsize "even greater for millennials - more than 60 percent wanting more living space."

It shouldn't surprise you, then, that the townhouses sprouting in vacant lots all over Fishtown and Kensington - the ones going for $600,000 in areas where, just a few years ago, entire blocks would sell for $28,000, if anyone were buying - are 3,000 square feet and more.

Philadelphia and Detroit have the smallest houses, with a median of less than 1,700 square feet, McLaughlin's research found, so builders here appear to be working overtime to fill the size gap.

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when 900 square feet was about all you could squeeze out of an 11-foot-wide South Philly rowhouse and the several generations who lived there seemed happy.

Crowded, but happy. There are still extended families in city neighborhoods I've visited recently whose members each wait a half-hour to use the one bathroom.

When I was a kid, we ate in the kitchen and liked it.

For five years in the 1980s, one of those South Philly rowhouses was home. First, it was my wife and me, then our eldest joined us, and finally the dog.

The dog wasn't my idea. The little mutt was the last of a litter that some skinheads were threatening to throw in front of the Route 7 bus at Fourth and Queen Streets when she was rescued by a neighbor who already had a pup.

My wife always said we left our Queen Village row for a six-bedroom Mount Airy twin because the dog needed more room.

Do we call all this new city construction "McTownhouses," just as we dubbed their 1990s-to-2007 suburban counterparts "McMansions"?

Never mind.

Speaking of yesteryear, I always thought the biggest excesses in residential construction were the "New American Home" showhouses built for the annual National Association of Home Builders conventions in Las Vegas, Orlando, Houston or Dallas.

My first was in Houston in January 1997. It was also the first time I used the term empty nesters in a real estate article.

Those houses were product showcases, not actually places built for someone to live in, although most of them were purchased eventually.

That Houston house was 3,587 square feet of living space and had a price tag of $419,900.

The typical new American home in 1997 had 1,950 square feet and, in Houston, a median sale price of about $115,000.

In Philly, the median price in 1997 was $65,000 for a typical rowhouse.

In 1998, the 4,800-square-foot $950,000 showhouse in Dallas had two of everything - home offices, doors to the shower, his-and-her toilets in the master bath, and walk-in closets on each side of the master bedroom.

There were two garages, two microwaves, two cooktops, two ovens and two dishwashers in the kitchen, which had more than enough room for two cooks simultaneously preparing separate meals. There were three sinks, just in case a guest chef arrived for dinner.

Even the swimming pool had enough space on opposite sides to accommodate separate gatherings - one for him and one for her.

Obviously, the designers had never been to Philadelphia.

aheavens@phillynews.com
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