My state is a relatively low COL state. Big houses are surprisingly commonplace, and can be quite inexpensive. Many are very large boxes without a lot of architectural variety or interest. They can also be off the charts. It’s largely influenced by location, lot size, and materials used, finish out, etc… Those can vary greatly. But in general, land is fairly cheap here, so it doesn’t cost as much to have a big home here compared to Seattle, Chicago, San Fran, etc.
If big means 4000+ sq ft, those would stay on the market in my area for awhile due to only about 1-2% of buyers being able to afford them.
I have about 2400 including a mostly unfinished basement. I wish my home office were bigger, but really I can’t imagine having more space. We have five bedrooms, 2 full baths and 2 half baths. We only have two kids. I guess it might have been nice to have had a room for a ping pong table. (Basement has a pole in the way.) But that’s about the only thing I’d change.
We have the ping pong cover over the pool table. It will probably get listed on free cycle!
Our house is about 2800 sq ft, with an additional 1000 sq ft finished walkout lower level. Three car garage. 2 acres of land (but that’s required here). We really like our house…a nice lake at the corner…quiet location. But it’s not what we will want in a few years…
My friends have their 5000 sf house on the market. Even if they sell it at a fair price what do they do with all that stuff? LR, FR, SR, fully furnished basement. DR? straight to the curb, you cannot give it away. All five bedrooms are big enough to have sitting areas. None of the children live in the area and can even take a chair.
@MaterS have them call Amvets…or a women’s shelter that sets women and families up in new households. These places both might pick up the furniture they can use.
Re: #104
Offer to include the furniture with the house?
@MaterS, do they have enough for an estate sale? The company we talked to said that people will buy just about anything, other than organs or pianos (of course, my parents have one of each). They typically take a 40% commission, but they do everything, including disposing of stuff that doesn’t sell. They told us to take out of the house everything we want to keep, and they will organize/display the rest for sale.
@thumper1 sadly the donation sites are overwhelmed with stuff too. Maybe there should be a way to move it less fortunate areas of the country.
My friends do it with rescue dogs. Someone needs to make it happen.
It depends on the person and what you want to include in your home. My dog and I live alone in a >4000 sqft home. I could certainly live in a space 1/4 that size and be happy, as I have in the past. However, if I could choose any home size, ideally I’d prefer even larger.
For the vast majority of my life, I’ve been interested in home theater and related electrical/electronics builds. This relates to why I became an EE major. One of the most important criteria for me is enough space to have a good sized, designated theater room, with various room specific features, such as being fully light controlled. Another useful feature for me is enough space for a quality enough gym to fully replace a commercial gym membership, including both weight and cardio equipment. The theater and gyms (gyms spread across multiple rooms) take up most of the extra rooms. The remainder are more typical rooms – bedroom + bath, guest bedroom + bath, kitchen, living room, computer/server/automation controllers/tech room, garage, etc. I could do without the standard x bed/y bath home structure and have some of the beds/baths replaced with larger rooms, but a custom build like this would not be cost effective and would reduce home resale value.
My H traveled for business a lot when our Ds were young. I am an absolute chicken and would have been scared to death in a 4,000 square foot house!
So clearly a good many of the CC posts here are blowing that median sq footage right off the charts. 
I’m going to make an executive decision and say that over 3000 square feet is large. That includes walkout lower levels and finished basements.
Amen, @“Cardinal Fang”!
We only have 3 bedrooms but a lot of square footage. When I am alone in the house, I love it…until it’s time to go to bed.
Then it is way too big…I hear noises…my cat is hypervigilant and jerks at the slightest noise…I have trouble sleeping soundly…
Yep, it can get creepy.
Some posts have said their house is x square feet including the basement. A lot of the time however, I read posts where people say “My house is the perfect size. Only 3000 square feet.” Then you find out that they also have a 1000 + sq. foot finished basement. “Well, our county doesn’t count that in the square footage.” But it’s still THERE, right? So really you have a 4000+ square foot house.
“straight to the curb, you cannot give it away.”
Sure you can. If you list it for cheap or free on facebook yardsale groups, craigslist, freecycle, you’ll be able to move most of it.
Well I am ashamed. Our house is bigger than I thought. It’s 26 x 26 with a full (unfinished) basement and walk-up (unfinished but definitely usable) attic, adds up to just over 2,700 s.f. I thought it was smaller.
My house is 1800 sq ft, plus another finished 400 sq ft in the basement including the 4th bedroom. The rest of the basement is unfinished. We rarely have used the basement since S went to college 7 years ago. We “live” in our kitchen which opens into the family room. I can count of one hand the number of times we’ve used the dining room in a year. We entertain more frequently in the summer on the deck and I’ve added a large patio this summer for even more outdoor “living” space.
The smallest bedroom H uses for his office. The other extra bedroom is the guest room. Imo, it’s the perfect size for us empty nesters, but even still we certainty don’t need all the space we have. I’m really glad we never upsized so don’t need to downsize and being in a ranch, with laundry room on main level, we can age in place. It’s also much less expensive to heat and cool than a bigger house. Cheaper for cleaning person, too.
We are on 1/3 acre which, imo, is larger than we need, too.
We are 2200 sq ft, plus 1100 sq ft mostly finished basement. I almost never stop foot in the basement; S17 used it mostly for the PS4 and pool table and there’s an office down there. Dining room is used on Thanksgiving - and the dog eats in there, that’s about it! We have 4 bedrooms, so 1 spare that D17 uses for extra closet space. And we’re on 2 acres.
I don’t consider the house “big” because it’s smaller than almost everything else in the area, but it’s too big for me now! I’m over 2 acres. Was great when the kids were little, but now it’s just a lot of mowing and weeding! But we’ll probably stay put until hubby is ready to retire and we can leave NJ for somewhere with less property taxes!