I found it astonishing in the 90’s how large houses were becoming, as families were so much smaller than in the past. But everyone wanted a gym, a home office, a sitting room off their bedroom, etc.
I think the trend is reversing now. Commuting further, higher property taxes, higher insurance, and higher heating and cooling costs are something to consider. Young people want more walkability, a more manageable house, public services and access like bike trails, etc. In fact, I want that too!
So I work for a suburban NJ municipality thats been ranked #1 town to live in by NJ Monthly magazine on 2 occasions in the past 5 years. The school district is Blue Ribbon (tops in NJ). 45 minute train ride to NYC. The housing market is super red hot in the $500-$800k range with multiple offers presented during open houses. (anything under 500k is considered a knockdown or total gut). The $800k-3million is in a major slump as there are nearly 1,000 properties in this price range within a 10 mile radius. NJ Property taxes are one of the worst in the US, so this adds to the downturn on the upper end of the market, not to mention millionaires tax on properties above 1 million. Builders are starting to back off and slow down in the Northern NJ area because of the inventory glut. Conversely, nearly every town in the area is going thru a downtown revitalization with multifamily housing complexes over retail (literally 200 rental units over 20 retail stores. Rents starting at $2400 for 1br. Builders must know something because they fill up fast.
Also in NJ and going to echo what others from my state have said. Those big houses that cost 1 million to build are hard to sell right now. Property taxes are high (and the loss of the tax savings for property taxes makes them worse) and living expenses are high also (high income taxes, high sales taxes, and high commuting expenses). That being said, I have been told by several realtors that the millenniums want the updated white/grey look of today (especially in their kitchens) and won’t pay the high cost for a house that needs to be updated to get that look.
It depends on the area. Trulia has a function to compare 4+ bedrooms to other sizes in different markets. In my area of southern, coastal CA, 4+ bedrooms show a nearly identical trend to other home sizes, which is increasing median sales prices with each year, but slightly fewer total homes sold (compared to post subprime mortgage crisis). Trulia indicates median sales prices are currently the highest they have ever been in my area, as are home value estimates. This Trulia summary fits reasonably well with my local neighborhood of large houses – fewer houses on the market, but those on the market tend to sell as quickly as in the past for a substantially higher median price than in the past.
First thing I did away with was that drab painted kitchen. 
it was not cheap but goodness I love my cherry!
We did not paint our gorgeous maple cabinets in the house we sold in 2017 either. Millennials here are not that picky because the overall market is healthy (again, this is Seattle area we are talking about). In Bay Area… glorified sheds still sell for over $1M if the location is right.
We have custom stained wood moldings in our house. The next owner can paint them.
We are thinking about getting our oak cabinets (solid wood) refaced with a light cherry finish shaker look. But that’s because we want that.
My mother’s house had a light green exterior. It was on the market for a year. She painted it white with black trim based on a realtor’s recommendation and it was sold within a month. The realtor said when people saw the house online with a green exterior, they just didn’t even bothered to click on it.
For those of you in the parts of MD and VA around DC, is the timing of potential gov’t shutdowns a factor in deciding when to sell or not sell? Does that have any impact, or is there enough private employment in the area to smooth it out?
Government shutdowns have no impact. Federal employees essentially get paid vacations as they do get back pay when it’s over. Plus contractors are funded through projects and I’ve never heard anything lasting so long it impacted that. Tightening of defense budgets has a bigger impact.
Northern New England here. In my town, which is known to be one of the best school districts in the area as well as one of the wealthier communities, small homes move very quickly (combo of folks wanting to move into a good school district at a reasonable price and folks looking to downsize). Homes in the 3-5K square foot range are doing well, especially when priced at market. Bigger homes, the real McMansions, are a tougher sell. Many of those are also tacky though and haven’t aged well as they were finished with characteristics that were too trendy or too idiosyncratic to have broad appeal.
Antique homes like New England farmhouse style, Victorians and especially true 200+ year old Colonials are a much tougher sale. Most younger home buyers don’t want the upkeep and maintenance issues that come with such homes.
Not always. H works for a smaller contractor and was paid during the last shutdown, but likely won’t next time (fortunately we will be fine financially).
As for the DC area, I should mention that the 4/5 bedroom, 3K+ square foot homes where I live are 30ish miles from the city. We are sitting in a sweet spot as the commutes from here to several places where lots of job are located (Tysons, Herndon/Chantilly, eastern Loudon) are pretty reasonable. With Amazon coming to Arlington/Crystal City the prices closer in are starting to rise even faster. That can only help our area.
The houses on my street get snapped up quickly. Most have been sold before a “for sale” sign has gone up. The families moving in are young and have young children (and apparently good incomes), so there are at least some younger buyers who are interested in these homes. I hope this is the case in a few years when we sell.
We recently sold our 4BR house and it wasn’t an easy process. The market in our price range tanked right when we went on the market. According to the realtors, houses $75-100K less were going quickly, but not in our price range. Our town is known for good schools and a good community. There’s been an influx of foreigners lately, who culturally (according to the realtors who’ve worked with them) want to bargain. We got 2 lowball offers from foreigners, even though the house was priced to include the need for some cosmetic upgrades, who were unwilling to negotiate. We took the house off the market for some of the winter, went back on the beginning of April and sold in days - to a couple who saw the value in the house at our asking price.
My opinion. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s baby boomers were in their prime earning years and many were feeling affluent. They built larger homes because they could and were deemed status symbols. Then the 2008 recession hit just as the oldest of the baby boomers were beginning to consider retirement and smaller accommodations. The following generation Gen X wasn’t large or wealthy enough to absorb the large homes built the previous two decades. The Millennials burdened with college debt need smaller starter homes which surprisingly they are competing with much wealthier baby boomers for. Many of these large homes were built in areas where people are moving away from rather than to which also contributes to the lack of demand for these home. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Perhaps as the boomers retire the price of these larger homes will come down to a point that the Millennials, who now want to have families and will be taking the place of the boomers, can afford them. Even affluent Millennials are finding themselves priced out of the cities they are attracted to. As they start families (albeit somewhat later than usual in life) they too may find suburban existence not as boring as they felt it was earlier.
@doschicos - Interesting about the older homes in your area. In our close in Chicago burb, those are the hot properties, IF they’ve been renovated. I think though in our area, it’s more of a convenience factor though than the historic houses. The historic districts are where you can walk to town, public transportation, and the beaches.
Most of the houses in our area are 2000-2500 square feet. Built in the 1920s to 1930s inner suburb of NYC easy commute. The prices have been inching up, but they go for anywhere from $500,000 to $800,000. We are getting killed by the loss of the SALT deduction, but people live here because this is where their jobs are and they don’t want to spend hours commuting. There’s one larger house in our neighborhood that claims to be 4000 square feet and is on a double lot. They are asking almost $800,000 and it’s been sitting there for 3 months. It’s on an annoyingly busy street and I suspect they are counting the basement which the ad says has a “summer kitchen”. I bet dollars to donuts it isn’t permitted. From photos it looks to be in decent shape, but unattractive paint colors and dated bathrooms. (But not nearly as dated as some in our neighborhood!) These were probably redone in the 90s.
@doschicos said:
You mean like this one?
https://www.conciergeauctions.com/auctions/3716-north-white-chapel-boulevard-dallas-fort-worth-texas
Hard to believe, but it actually sold! Probably way below cost, though, due to reasons noted above by doschicos.
This is what just under $3 million buys you in Palo Alto:
https://www.compass.com/listing/3728-lindero-drive-palo-alto-ca-94306/253591895899374657/
Because I was obsessively on realtor dot com for nearly a year when we were looking for our current house, I still frequently pop on to see what is for sale in the area. I’m getting really good at spotting the issues for the houses that don’t seem to sell. Inventory is really low in our area, so unless a home is over $2.5 million, it should should move. (That seems to be the threshold in our community where even a nice house will sit for a long time. I’m assuming there aren’t many buyers who can afford a list price that high, or the taxes that go along with it).
A big thing here is that some of the older homes were never retrofitted for A/C, still have 100 amp service, and knob and tube wiring. Those are big, messy projects and many buyers won’t even go look at a house. Some sellers spruce up the paint or put in new counters to make the staging pics look nice, but don’t touch the mechanicals and wiring. There was a super cool Victorian that we looked at that sat on the market for 2 years. It had multiple offers but then the inspections happened and the deals fell apart. We looked at it too - holes in the basement floor, cheap cabinets for staging, mechanicals that supposedly were installed but didn’t function, a sunroom that wasn’t structurally sound not to mention the kitchen and all the bathrooms needed to be gutted. House abutted a main thoroughfare as well. It finally sold way, way, way below asking. Another house that we saw reeked of mold and mildew and it was obvious they put lipstick on a pig in the kitchen.
I think owners, especially long time owners, want to get what they paid back out which isn’t always possible; and look blindly at the price/sq foot without considering updates/upgrades/finishes.
The house we bought was priced as if it was fully renovated. Sat on the market for nearly a year. We paid well under list and that was after 3 price reductions. Then we turned around and renovated. Now we could probably get their original ask price ; ). Having lived through an extensive renovation, I can see why people don’t want to!
My town in Cap District of NYS is very hot and has been for several years now. Houses are only on the market a few days, if that - especially the smaller houses which are generally ranches, capes or bungalows. There are bidding wars on these homes. The buyers, for the most part, are younger people who want to be in this town for the schools, the very easy commute to downtown and the definable village center (which has cafes, pubs, coffee shops, breweries, bookstore, etc., which is in easy walking distance from older section of town.) This area has the oldest and smallest homes. This part of town also has sidewalks and a rail trail running through it and is extremely desirable. Many of these homes have not been upgraded in decades and it doesn’t matter. They want in. Also, if your bigger older or newer colonial (1980ish) is in the walkable part of town it’s selling quickly, too.
The other buyers of the smaller homes are the down-sizers who already lived in town. Two homes on my street sold to down-sizers recently. Both were gutted inside and out.
The people who have bigger colonials further out and McMansions, on bigger lots are having a harder time and have to drop the price or price less than they thought to begin with. Most buyers for those houses are already town residents who have outgrown their smaller homes but want to stay in the same school district.
My town is busily putting in sidewalks in the newer sections on the main roads to connect them to the older sections, and village center so they can walk/ride their bikes into town without fear of getting hit.
I think this is so local and can vary even town to town. In my little town (west of Boston), houses priced in the $500-$800k range are moving within days of being listed. One of my neighbors listed his house at $750k and had multiple offers within days. Above that range, however, houses are just sitting. There are many houses in our town priced over a million that have been on the market a very long time.