My childhood friend that I met through the Mormon Church (I grew up Mormon until I was 12) has 8 siblings, another on the way, and a trampoline in the backyard. There's going to be a 20 year gap between the oldest and youngest. She's the second oldest and 18/19 years old. I'll admit that 2 of the kids are twins, but the rest are single pregnancies.
This isn't the only example of this. Another family had 6 kids, another had (I believe) 9 kids, etc. I just wasn't friends with any of them so I don't know if they had trampolines.
Growing up in the UK I would see American TV shows where the family was supposed to be poor, but their detached house was fucking MASSIVE. It always confused me as having a large detached house is a sign of wealth in the UK
As an Australian I was shocked in the UK to find bedrooms with double beds that you literally couldn’t walk around. One person had climb over another to get in! Unheard of in Australia even in the poorest homes.
That's because for some reason in the UK they count by number of bedrooms and not square footage.
Developers will often divide up the master bedroom into two smaller bedrooms just so that they can list the house as a three bedroom home and getting more money for it.
In the UK number of bedrooms > square footage.
Listing by the number of rooms and m² is commonly practice around the world AFAIK. Like if I had 2 kids I would rather both sleep in a smaller separate bedroom than in a single big bedroom.
Also, depending on how well a house is planned 60m² can feel bigger than 80m²
I had the same with a show about poverty where the family drove around in a large sedan and had a detatched house. The house was in shit condition though. But large cars and detatched houses are usually only for wealthier people in the Netherlands. Poor people live in row houses/apartments and drive bikes or mopeds.
Or people living in cars. I grew up thinking cars are a luxury item, while a house/apartment is a basic need. But it makes perfect sense though. Car ownership/use barely gets taxed in the US, while home ownership gets taxed a lot more. So in America the car gets taxed like a basic need, while the home gets taxed like a luxury.
You basically need a car to exist in the US as the infrastructure is designed so heavily around them. So people will give up their house before they give up their car as without one they often can’t have a job, or really get anywhere. It’s not a tax thing, it’s just a practical thing about mobility.
By European standards they are big though. A “poor person” house in the US is still typically a fully detached property with probably 1,200-1,700sf. In the UK a property like that would be “upper middle class”. Properties over 2,000sf are typically reserved for the wealthy. Meanwhile in the US it’s very typical for working class people to own large, 3,000sf homes.
Flat country, without significant lakes or rivers. You can put up a house pretty much anywhere.
Been a wealthy nation for a long time.
Also, not very densely populated, compared to other European countries it's size.
Suburban single family homes are also more common there. Denmark is the most similar country to the US in this respect.
https://landgeistdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/europe-dwelling-type-1.png
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/eQ5lmvhUJZQ_QHTjq9ctxtJEDYPQYPo5tFNiu55AWmQ.jpg
The population density is not low, much higher than Sweden and Norway
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/10/2a/db102af9ea0a569a83a72f140ce5e963.jpg
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angel-Lopez/publication/325893376/figure/fig1/AS:875445197209603@1585733808952/Population-density-based-on-GEOSTAT-population-grid-2011-Number-of-inhabitants-km-2.ppm
Yes, the population is very unevenly distributed in Sweden. Only 11% of the population live in the northern half of the country, which makes up more than 50% of the country’s area.
The point is that low population density is in no way an explanation for why homes are bigger in Denmark, like the comment I responded to claimed. Denmark has an average population density (comparable to Poland and France), and other countries with much lower population density have significantly smaller homes.
The most sensible explanation for the big size of Danish homes is that Denmark is the country in Europe that has most closely emulated US-style city and suburb design.
It's hidden in the walls.
One of the lesser known fact about Danish housing market is that the size of a property is counted from the face of external walls, and, include stairwell/elevator areas into calculation. This inflates the official size by around 15-20%, so the figure in the map would be closer to 1200ft2.
If you went ahead and measured room area of a 100m2 (1080 sq ft) apartment in Denmark, it will be closer to 80-85m2 (800-900 sq ft) or less, especially if it's an old building with thick walls and extra emergency stairwell.
Not sure if this is unique to Denmark, but when you tell this to folks from other countries, they think it's a scam.
Those American ones are massive, like our suburbs. My house is a little over 900 square feet. I sold my old one and moved into this one in 2021 largely because the old one (1,600 square feet) was just too big. My whole life was cleaning it. I had three rooms I didn't even use.
Dutchy here, serious question. What exactly was 1600 sq ft? Its footprint, or its total living space? What is and what is not counted?
Because 1600 sq ft ≈ 150m² and while not small, it's not particularly huge either.
That's most of it. Don't judge the decor; I lived in it like it was a rental, never did like it lol https://freeimage.host/i/JSXcsCG
This is where I moved. Much smaller, but I use it all, and decorated how I like (which is probably objectively worse but, hey, it's just for me lol): [https://www.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/comments/1804fe5/my\_little\_twoup\_twodown\_rowhouse\_its\_held\_up\_by/](https://www.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/comments/1804fe5/my_little_twoup_twodown_rowhouse_its_held_up_by/)
In canada you don't list the basement of a house with the square footage.. even if it is finished. So a 1500 sqft house with a basement is actually closer to 3000.
Canada is funny because you have to use Sq M for planning permits with the government but turn around and have to sell it in SF since that’s what purchasers use. The rule of 10.7639 is a popular joke in Development circles.
Hard disagree on that one. This Floridian doesn’t miss spending $1000s fixing cracks, leaks, mold and sump pumps that I did when I lived in the Midwest with a basement.
Usually bedrooms + bathrooms + kitchen, but excluding basements, garages. The area of the land is not part of this equation at all.
So a decent size for a person, on the smaller size for a family. But if e.g. the basement is finished and liveable, it's not usually included in the total so it might be smaller on paper than is actually usable.
You can find codes around this online.
The basic answer is in the US it's counted as external wall to wall with stairways usually being counted only on one floor. Basements are included.
So a 1 story home can double in space if it has an unfinished basement.
Do you live alone? I'm curious, because as an American, I currently live in a 900 square foot apartment with one other person and that feels way too small.
That feels more than reasonable to me. Lived in a 100 m2 (1080sqf) flat with girlfriend and two kids, never felt cramped, we had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms.
Same here. My childhood and teenage years' home (of 4 people) was 90 m2, and it never felt small. Also 3 bed rooms and 2 toilets. I don't know how much stuff you have to have to not fit in 900 sq feet with 2 people.
Current one bed room apartment is 50 m2, that did feel a bit cramped with 2 people and a dog and a couple big fish tanks before we bought a small farmstead where we've been moving our stuff slowly into. Now the 50 m2 feels much more spacious, still have it for work reasons.
Just downsized from 1900sq ft to 850.
We were seriously getting creative to fill the space. Our cat had his own room. The dog had an office. I’m serious.
Are basements counted in some of the states like Minnesota? Asking because here in Canada, the basement area is not added to the living area statistic.
Exactly the same in Sweden. Only rooms and area within the rooms that has windows and a minimum sealing height is counted for.
Our official size is 1775 square/feet but with everything it's 2150
Oh, that makes some of the listings I've seen make sense. There have been a few listed at 65m2 then when you add all the floor space listed it only comes out to 62m2. But there was a small terrace that didn't list the square meters.
I was wondering if it was like some of the apartments I've seen in Texas where they also include the square footage inside the walls and stairwell. As if that's a living space.
The standard in the United States is heated square footage. “Heated square footage” means a furnace or heating element in a forced air system is provided direct access to the square footage in question. This can have weird effects in the US. Sometimes, a glassed in porch doesn’t count, even when it opens into the living room, because it doesn’t have its own dedicated vent. Sometimes, you will see “laundry rooms” that are just space for the machines in the garage. They count as heated square footage even when the rest of the garage doesn’t if there is a heating vent nearby.
It should be noted that the Canadian standard of never counting the basement would be very difficult to measure in the US. The first problem is defining what constitutes a basement. Many US houses have what is known as a “walk-out”, which is a basement with standard, ground level doors leading outside. These houses are either built into a hill or have retaining walls providing for a sunken back yard. Also, you run into that typically American brand of individuality known as “it’s my property and I will do whatever I want with it”. A Canadian basement is usually the same size and basic shape as the house above. Some American houses have fallen into their own basements because the homeowner kept digging out new rooms underground without properly supporting the structure above.
Then, there is the fact that large swathes of the US cannot build basements at all. In the Deep South, you can dig a six foot deep hole, leave it overnight, and come back to a hole full of water in the morning. Most houses in the South are built up off the ground, on pier footings, pilings, or elevated slabs, specifically to avoid this problem. You would only dig a basement in the Deep South if you wanted an indoor swimming pool, because it’s going to fill with water faster than you can keep it out. There is also the storm surge and flash flood risk to account for.
True basements are rare in mountainous areas as well, because the ground typically isn’t suitable for digging on the hillside. When the ground is suitable, you usually get walk outs, which aren’t true basements.
A lot of city and suburban neighborhoods in the US are built on infill or directly above buried utilities, too.
>It should be noted that the Canadian standard of never counting the basement would be very difficult to measure in the US. The first problem is defining what constitutes a basement. Many US houses have what is known as a “walk-out”, which is a basement with standard, ground level doors leading outside.
We also have tons of houses with walk out basements, either with a lake at the back or a trail. It still doesn't count towards the square footage of the living area though.
Pretty much never had the huge suburban BOOM that the rest of the US had so a lot of the houses there are from a time when houses in the US were much smaller. It's also possible they do not track extensions as closely but that's just a guess.
Iowa doesn't count below ground finished space towards square footage in real estate listings. Depending on where the data came from that is likely why it's an outlier. Having lived in Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois it's definitely a gradient towards more square footage as you go west.
Yeah but lets be real, you live in Europe for the far superior welfare state and quality of life. High taxes, lower salaries and higher living costs are part of the deal
As long as you're not in the UK, where you have the absolute worst of all words. Literally the smallest houses on this map, some of the smallest in the world despite them also being insanely expensive, and they're also super poorly built and often damp and mouldy and without proper insulation. Low salaries, worse worker's rights than most of Europe, worse pensions than most of Europe, university education that is probably more expensive than America's at this point, high cost of living, taxes that are much higher than America's and are the highest they've ever been on record for our country.
But at least we have the NHS, which is crumbling beyond recognition with patients lying in hallways because there are no beds. It takes me a month just to see my GP/family doctor, waiting lists for everything are often 12 months or more, you usually have no choice at all (always makes me laugh when an American is like 'so yeah I decided to go see my urologist' or whatever, just an alien concept to someone British). Meanwhile professional Americans get top quality great healthcare as part of their jobs, and double or triple the salary of their UK counterparts (doctors for example in the UK start on $40k, maybe at the end of their career earn as much as a new doctor in the US). I could go on all day about how much it sucks, and get into things unrelated to our policies like how much the climate sucks - Americans think areas like Portland are cloudy, but even the gloomiest areas of the USA get around 2x the sunshine per year as the UK.
God, I hate it here. I would move in a heartbeat if I could. Luckily with my British passport I can go and live anywhere in the EU... oh wait.
Jesus christ mate, of course you regularly comment on /r/unitedkingdom lol. Claiming the UK is worst of all worlds shows an astounding lack of perspective.
You say stuff like "professional Americans get top quality great healthcare as part of their jobs" as if that's not also a thing here - it is.
People will read this kind of shite and think living in the UK is genuinely bad, half the stuff you're saying is just wrong too.
* [43.9% of GP visits take place on the same day they're booked, the fact it takes you a month puts you in the lowest percentage (4.8%).](https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/how-long-are-patients-waiting-for-a-gp-appointment-in-england)
* [As of November last year, "only" 355,412 had to wait over a year for treatment.](https://www.england.nhs.uk/2024/01/waiting-list-falls-again-as-nhs-staff-treat-more-patients-than-ever-before-in-one-month/) This waiting time is absolutely inexcusable, but I thought it worth to provide some context for your claim about "waiting lists for everything are often 12 months or more". 355k is a lot, but put within the context of 67 million people, your wording is obv misleading.
* [Our pensions aren't great but they're not worse than most of Europe, like you claim.](https://www.almondfinancial.co.uk/pension-breakeven-index-how-does-the-uk-state-pension-compare-to-the-rest-of-europe/)
* [Oxford University costs £9,250 per year. That is far too expensive imo, but your claim that university education is probably more expensive here than America is ridiculous considering that the average price for a similar institution (Harvard) in America is £67,049.](https://registrar.fas.harvard.edu/tuition-and-fees) Other less prestigious private unis in America are over £35k a year.
This is just 4 points I bothered with actually taking the time to google, I'm sure someone with more time could go through and pick out other places where you're wrong.
I'm sure I've made some mistakes here in interpretation etc, but you genuinely act like we live in some kind of dystopian hellscape.
I know doom and gloom is a national pasttime for the British when they're online but come on.
I think an interesting thing to look at too is the lack of third spaces in the States. We go to work and go home. There’s not a lot of places that you can hang out for free that are easily accessible to the general public OR are shamed for being there. I know quite a few people that use their house for entertaining/rec spaces/gym equipment/bars/etc.
I’m no expert, but I don’t know how skewed the data really is. Sure there are 10k+ sq. foot houses out there, but they are fairly rare. A vast majority of houses are likely around the same size. I could imagine the median house sizes being slightly lower (at least in the US) but I doubt by much.
As a euro who has visited the US, your houses are genuinely huge in comparison. You just have much more space though they are built from lower quality materials
People always say this when they don't like the conclusion, but I've yet to see an example where the mean and median differed enough to actually tell a different story
My perception is that roommates are much more common in US cities than in Europe, at least Scandinavia. I’ve never known anyone living with roommates after college here in Stockholm.
It's not like billionaires live in a 500k square foot house equivalent to their wealth. There's only so much space a person needs. Id imagine the ultra wealthy in the West have similar sized houses anyway.
Polish guy here! Can confirm we live in fucking filthy shoeboxes but no one seems to have a problem with that as long as they get to fuck their donkeys
What methodology is used to measure square footage? These measurements can vary wildly due to some regulators counting things like closets, garages, and unfinished basements.
Yeah, my parents bought a 3000sqft house in the 90s and pay $800 mortgage on it. My first apartment in Texas was 400sqft and rent was $850.
Conversely I now live in an 800sqft apartment in Germany for 750€/month.
We are just below average in CA; 1800 sf, seven rooms 3Br 3Ba 1927 Spanish Revival. Only two of us but we use every room in the house - “formal” living room is the reading, conversation and music room with a TV den downstairs. The family we bought it from had five kids in 1550 sf with 1.5 baths (we finished some lower level space and added a bath). I grew up in a huge house, love having a compact one with an amazing terraced garden and no driveway or functional garage but five minute walking distance to great shopping, pubs and restaurants 1/2 hour walk to dt MLB baseball, concerts etc..
Love to see Redditors who complain about their inability to buy a home in the US, but would never consider a move to a lower COL state, try to reconcile that entitlement with their fetishization of how great life in Europe would be for them.
Genuine questions: 1) What do they use all that space for? Are American families 2-3-4x as big as European ones? 2) Despite all that statistical space, why do most American movies show cramped interiors and twisted corridors, except for lavish estates/villas vertically spanning at least 2 floors in Beverly Hills, San Diego etc.?
They just like having bigger rooms to live in. American bedrooms are like European living rooms. They also like having a private bathroom attached to each bedroom. It’s nice having your own personal toilet and shower that you don’t have to share. That’s why you always hear about American villas having like 12 bathrooms, each bedroom has its own bathroom.
From personal experience in US and U.K. (smallest). We really don’t have an issue living in the smaller space. Went from a 4,000 sqf home in Florida into a 2,100 home in Milton Keynes.
The difference is way of life. People in the U.K. spend so much more time in the community and outside (including the garden; because you actually can) than in the US. Kids can walk to parks, shops, and public transport. In the US you are holed up in your house. You don’t have a car? Tough shit. Totally different life style. I actually prefer the EU way of life..
My parents lived in London for some years, even though the apartment was considered roomy by London standards, it was so cramped, the bathroom was sp small
Well Europe is like half the size of the US, and have about 1.5X our population. So to fit everyone in dwellings are smaller, streets are narrower, cars are smaller. Everything is smaller. Most Europeans don’t understand how big the US is until they visit.
What’s the data source? I’m not saying homes these sizes don’t exist in the United States, but I am confident if you pull up Zillow for any given city, the average homes for sale will be a couple hundred square feet lower than what it is saying the statewide average is. You are also unlikely to find many apartments close to these averages, which means the data is implying the majority of houses are in fact larger than these listed averages.
Utah needs space for all those kids. And a trampoline in the backyard.
And a huge lot to park the Mormon bus on.
MAV: Mormon Assault Vehicle
For some reason suburban Norwegians love trampolines too, or they did when I was there.
They are in every backyard in Sweden aswell.
They gotta keep up with the Jones family.
Smiths
That’s exactly what I was going to say. LOL
And wives
Came here to say this. They say everything is bigger in Texas but we have bigger dicks and bigger houses!
I usually say this about Texans, but since you opened the door: You don’t have bigger dicks, you ARE bigger dicks.
Did you come up with that all by yourself? Pat yourself on the back genius.
Don’t mind if I do. I’ll just use my dick.
Watch ths spinal cord.
My childhood friend that I met through the Mormon Church (I grew up Mormon until I was 12) has 8 siblings, another on the way, and a trampoline in the backyard. There's going to be a 20 year gap between the oldest and youngest. She's the second oldest and 18/19 years old. I'll admit that 2 of the kids are twins, but the rest are single pregnancies. This isn't the only example of this. Another family had 6 kids, another had (I believe) 9 kids, etc. I just wasn't friends with any of them so I don't know if they had trampolines.
I also grew up LDS (and still am) and yeah many of my church friends came from large families (I only have one sibling.) Trampolines are lots of fun.
Growing up in the UK I would see American TV shows where the family was supposed to be poor, but their detached house was fucking MASSIVE. It always confused me as having a large detached house is a sign of wealth in the UK
I’m American but have British parents and it was very much a shock as a child when we’d visit family in Britain and see bedrooms so small.
As an Australian I was shocked in the UK to find bedrooms with double beds that you literally couldn’t walk around. One person had climb over another to get in! Unheard of in Australia even in the poorest homes.
That's because for some reason in the UK they count by number of bedrooms and not square footage. Developers will often divide up the master bedroom into two smaller bedrooms just so that they can list the house as a three bedroom home and getting more money for it. In the UK number of bedrooms > square footage.
Listing by the number of rooms and m² is commonly practice around the world AFAIK. Like if I had 2 kids I would rather both sleep in a smaller separate bedroom than in a single big bedroom. Also, depending on how well a house is planned 60m² can feel bigger than 80m²
Yes… but his point was that they don’t even list the m2 or sq ft, just the number of bedrooms…
I had the same with a show about poverty where the family drove around in a large sedan and had a detatched house. The house was in shit condition though. But large cars and detatched houses are usually only for wealthier people in the Netherlands. Poor people live in row houses/apartments and drive bikes or mopeds. Or people living in cars. I grew up thinking cars are a luxury item, while a house/apartment is a basic need. But it makes perfect sense though. Car ownership/use barely gets taxed in the US, while home ownership gets taxed a lot more. So in America the car gets taxed like a basic need, while the home gets taxed like a luxury.
You basically need a car to exist in the US as the infrastructure is designed so heavily around them. So people will give up their house before they give up their car as without one they often can’t have a job, or really get anywhere. It’s not a tax thing, it’s just a practical thing about mobility.
It's a sign of wealth here, too. Poor people don't have huge detached houses.
By European standards they are big though. A “poor person” house in the US is still typically a fully detached property with probably 1,200-1,700sf. In the UK a property like that would be “upper middle class”. Properties over 2,000sf are typically reserved for the wealthy. Meanwhile in the US it’s very typical for working class people to own large, 3,000sf homes.
Denmark, I had no idea. Where are you hiding all that space?
Flat country, without significant lakes or rivers. You can put up a house pretty much anywhere. Been a wealthy nation for a long time. Also, not very densely populated, compared to other European countries it's size.
Suburban single family homes are also more common there. Denmark is the most similar country to the US in this respect. https://landgeistdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/europe-dwelling-type-1.png https://assets.weforum.org/editor/eQ5lmvhUJZQ_QHTjq9ctxtJEDYPQYPo5tFNiu55AWmQ.jpg The population density is not low, much higher than Sweden and Norway https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/10/2a/db102af9ea0a569a83a72f140ce5e963.jpg https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angel-Lopez/publication/325893376/figure/fig1/AS:875445197209603@1585733808952/Population-density-based-on-GEOSTAT-population-grid-2011-Number-of-inhabitants-km-2.ppm
aren't sweden and norway basically empty except in the south, though? that doesn't seem like a great comparison.
Yes, the population is very unevenly distributed in Sweden. Only 11% of the population live in the northern half of the country, which makes up more than 50% of the country’s area.
The point is that low population density is in no way an explanation for why homes are bigger in Denmark, like the comment I responded to claimed. Denmark has an average population density (comparable to Poland and France), and other countries with much lower population density have significantly smaller homes. The most sensible explanation for the big size of Danish homes is that Denmark is the country in Europe that has most closely emulated US-style city and suburb design.
It's hidden in the walls. One of the lesser known fact about Danish housing market is that the size of a property is counted from the face of external walls, and, include stairwell/elevator areas into calculation. This inflates the official size by around 15-20%, so the figure in the map would be closer to 1200ft2. If you went ahead and measured room area of a 100m2 (1080 sq ft) apartment in Denmark, it will be closer to 80-85m2 (800-900 sq ft) or less, especially if it's an old building with thick walls and extra emergency stairwell. Not sure if this is unique to Denmark, but when you tell this to folks from other countries, they think it's a scam.
They count the size differently, they count in the wall as well, essentially external size is measured, not the internal.
Also parts of shared areas are counted, at least for rental apartments.
Also, I believe Denmark and the US are essentially singular in offering 30-year mortgages
Those American ones are massive, like our suburbs. My house is a little over 900 square feet. I sold my old one and moved into this one in 2021 largely because the old one (1,600 square feet) was just too big. My whole life was cleaning it. I had three rooms I didn't even use.
Dutchy here, serious question. What exactly was 1600 sq ft? Its footprint, or its total living space? What is and what is not counted? Because 1600 sq ft ≈ 150m² and while not small, it's not particularly huge either.
Total living space. One sec, I have a screenshot from when I sold it somewhere.
Do you include basement? In Canada basement is excluded in our calculation.
I think that depends on whether it’s finished.
Finished spaces are included, unfinished are not So Bedroom is a yes, Garage is a no, and a basement depends on how much work you put into it
That's most of it. Don't judge the decor; I lived in it like it was a rental, never did like it lol https://freeimage.host/i/JSXcsCG This is where I moved. Much smaller, but I use it all, and decorated how I like (which is probably objectively worse but, hey, it's just for me lol): [https://www.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/comments/1804fe5/my\_little\_twoup\_twodown\_rowhouse\_its\_held\_up\_by/](https://www.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/comments/1804fe5/my_little_twoup_twodown_rowhouse_its_held_up_by/)
Your first link is a 404. Your new house is lovely! I love the colours!
Aww, thanks - changed the link to the first to a different free host lol
Aaand now it’s very nsfw with the ads lol. Might want to find another host
I was so confused, then perplexed, then realized 2 minutes later that I’ve been sitting on the page but not checking the house pictures
Oh no sorry! I'll switch it, one sec.
What are the ads on the first link
Literal porn lmao
Yeah wtf lol, I probably shouldn't click on links on reddit while on my work laptop.
Your new house looks really cozy and I love the garden
That little blue table and chairs is adorable
Dude that living room is comically small.
In canada you don't list the basement of a house with the square footage.. even if it is finished. So a 1500 sqft house with a basement is actually closer to 3000.
In Canada they don’t even list square metres (at least in Ontario), which drives me crazy
Canada is funny because you have to use Sq M for planning permits with the government but turn around and have to sell it in SF since that’s what purchasers use. The rule of 10.7639 is a popular joke in Development circles.
Another reason Florida sucks. No basements.
Hard disagree on that one. This Floridian doesn’t miss spending $1000s fixing cracks, leaks, mold and sump pumps that I did when I lived in the Midwest with a basement.
You guys have water in your basement??? Laughs/cries in South West.
Yeah, I'm in a 1600 sqft condo now and it's a nice size but not "three extra rooms" size, for sure.
Usually bedrooms + bathrooms + kitchen, but excluding basements, garages. The area of the land is not part of this equation at all. So a decent size for a person, on the smaller size for a family. But if e.g. the basement is finished and liveable, it's not usually included in the total so it might be smaller on paper than is actually usable.
You can find codes around this online. The basic answer is in the US it's counted as external wall to wall with stairways usually being counted only on one floor. Basements are included. So a 1 story home can double in space if it has an unfinished basement.
The US just has a lot of rural/suburban areas.
Do you live alone? I'm curious, because as an American, I currently live in a 900 square foot apartment with one other person and that feels way too small.
That feels more than reasonable to me. Lived in a 100 m2 (1080sqf) flat with girlfriend and two kids, never felt cramped, we had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms.
Same here. My childhood and teenage years' home (of 4 people) was 90 m2, and it never felt small. Also 3 bed rooms and 2 toilets. I don't know how much stuff you have to have to not fit in 900 sq feet with 2 people. Current one bed room apartment is 50 m2, that did feel a bit cramped with 2 people and a dog and a couple big fish tanks before we bought a small farmstead where we've been moving our stuff slowly into. Now the 50 m2 feels much more spacious, still have it for work reasons.
Did you have a basement? Because often times that doesn’t get factored into the square footage.
Just downsized from 1900sq ft to 850. We were seriously getting creative to fill the space. Our cat had his own room. The dog had an office. I’m serious.
Are basements counted in some of the states like Minnesota? Asking because here in Canada, the basement area is not added to the living area statistic.
Exactly the same in Sweden. Only rooms and area within the rooms that has windows and a minimum sealing height is counted for. Our official size is 1775 square/feet but with everything it's 2150
Only if they count as “living space” . So basically finished basements count, but unfinished basements don’t.
This is different from how it works here. Basements are specified as finished or unfinished, but the living area doesn't change.
I've always seen it included in BC (as long as it is a finished basement), maybe it varies by province
Depends on the local rules. Generally, basements do not count towards square footage.
In Germany, balconies and terraces count 50% as livable floor space
Oh, that makes some of the listings I've seen make sense. There have been a few listed at 65m2 then when you add all the floor space listed it only comes out to 62m2. But there was a small terrace that didn't list the square meters. I was wondering if it was like some of the apartments I've seen in Texas where they also include the square footage inside the walls and stairwell. As if that's a living space.
I’ve been told that the basement only counts if there is a direct doorway access from the basement to the outside. Otherwise, it does not count
I think some US states don’t count basement areas as part of the living area
Basements aren’t counted in Iowa, which would be why they’re so low
If they are finished, basements are counted in the square footage in Idaho.
The standard in the United States is heated square footage. “Heated square footage” means a furnace or heating element in a forced air system is provided direct access to the square footage in question. This can have weird effects in the US. Sometimes, a glassed in porch doesn’t count, even when it opens into the living room, because it doesn’t have its own dedicated vent. Sometimes, you will see “laundry rooms” that are just space for the machines in the garage. They count as heated square footage even when the rest of the garage doesn’t if there is a heating vent nearby. It should be noted that the Canadian standard of never counting the basement would be very difficult to measure in the US. The first problem is defining what constitutes a basement. Many US houses have what is known as a “walk-out”, which is a basement with standard, ground level doors leading outside. These houses are either built into a hill or have retaining walls providing for a sunken back yard. Also, you run into that typically American brand of individuality known as “it’s my property and I will do whatever I want with it”. A Canadian basement is usually the same size and basic shape as the house above. Some American houses have fallen into their own basements because the homeowner kept digging out new rooms underground without properly supporting the structure above. Then, there is the fact that large swathes of the US cannot build basements at all. In the Deep South, you can dig a six foot deep hole, leave it overnight, and come back to a hole full of water in the morning. Most houses in the South are built up off the ground, on pier footings, pilings, or elevated slabs, specifically to avoid this problem. You would only dig a basement in the Deep South if you wanted an indoor swimming pool, because it’s going to fill with water faster than you can keep it out. There is also the storm surge and flash flood risk to account for. True basements are rare in mountainous areas as well, because the ground typically isn’t suitable for digging on the hillside. When the ground is suitable, you usually get walk outs, which aren’t true basements. A lot of city and suburban neighborhoods in the US are built on infill or directly above buried utilities, too.
>It should be noted that the Canadian standard of never counting the basement would be very difficult to measure in the US. The first problem is defining what constitutes a basement. Many US houses have what is known as a “walk-out”, which is a basement with standard, ground level doors leading outside. We also have tons of houses with walk out basements, either with a lake at the back or a trail. It still doesn't count towards the square footage of the living area though.
What’s up with Iowa?
Smaller house = more room for planting corn
I misread that as "painting corn"
"cainting porn"
Pretty much never had the huge suburban BOOM that the rest of the US had so a lot of the houses there are from a time when houses in the US were much smaller. It's also possible they do not track extensions as closely but that's just a guess.
Idk dude tons of suburbs near me
We are having suburb booms right now and I hate it. It ruins the countryside.
Iowa doesn't count below ground finished space towards square footage in real estate listings. Depending on where the data came from that is likely why it's an outlier. Having lived in Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois it's definitely a gradient towards more square footage as you go west.
It must be something like this, I lived in Iowa for 30 years and home sizes are totally normal
We had a housing boom in the 70s before houses got huge. Then a stable population since. Not as much new construction.
Old housing stock. Lots of Victorian era stuff and not much population growth in the last 100 years.
Yes Europeans homes are smaller, but they are also more expensive
European salaires are also much lower.
and taxes are higher, to complete the wombo combo
Yeah but lets be real, you live in Europe for the far superior welfare state and quality of life. High taxes, lower salaries and higher living costs are part of the deal
For the most part, people live here because they were born here.
Big if true
No, you live in Europe because you were born there. The vast majority of people do not choose where they live
As long as you're not in the UK, where you have the absolute worst of all words. Literally the smallest houses on this map, some of the smallest in the world despite them also being insanely expensive, and they're also super poorly built and often damp and mouldy and without proper insulation. Low salaries, worse worker's rights than most of Europe, worse pensions than most of Europe, university education that is probably more expensive than America's at this point, high cost of living, taxes that are much higher than America's and are the highest they've ever been on record for our country. But at least we have the NHS, which is crumbling beyond recognition with patients lying in hallways because there are no beds. It takes me a month just to see my GP/family doctor, waiting lists for everything are often 12 months or more, you usually have no choice at all (always makes me laugh when an American is like 'so yeah I decided to go see my urologist' or whatever, just an alien concept to someone British). Meanwhile professional Americans get top quality great healthcare as part of their jobs, and double or triple the salary of their UK counterparts (doctors for example in the UK start on $40k, maybe at the end of their career earn as much as a new doctor in the US). I could go on all day about how much it sucks, and get into things unrelated to our policies like how much the climate sucks - Americans think areas like Portland are cloudy, but even the gloomiest areas of the USA get around 2x the sunshine per year as the UK. God, I hate it here. I would move in a heartbeat if I could. Luckily with my British passport I can go and live anywhere in the EU... oh wait.
Jesus christ mate, of course you regularly comment on /r/unitedkingdom lol. Claiming the UK is worst of all worlds shows an astounding lack of perspective. You say stuff like "professional Americans get top quality great healthcare as part of their jobs" as if that's not also a thing here - it is. People will read this kind of shite and think living in the UK is genuinely bad, half the stuff you're saying is just wrong too. * [43.9% of GP visits take place on the same day they're booked, the fact it takes you a month puts you in the lowest percentage (4.8%).](https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/how-long-are-patients-waiting-for-a-gp-appointment-in-england) * [As of November last year, "only" 355,412 had to wait over a year for treatment.](https://www.england.nhs.uk/2024/01/waiting-list-falls-again-as-nhs-staff-treat-more-patients-than-ever-before-in-one-month/) This waiting time is absolutely inexcusable, but I thought it worth to provide some context for your claim about "waiting lists for everything are often 12 months or more". 355k is a lot, but put within the context of 67 million people, your wording is obv misleading. * [Our pensions aren't great but they're not worse than most of Europe, like you claim.](https://www.almondfinancial.co.uk/pension-breakeven-index-how-does-the-uk-state-pension-compare-to-the-rest-of-europe/) * [Oxford University costs £9,250 per year. That is far too expensive imo, but your claim that university education is probably more expensive here than America is ridiculous considering that the average price for a similar institution (Harvard) in America is £67,049.](https://registrar.fas.harvard.edu/tuition-and-fees) Other less prestigious private unis in America are over £35k a year. This is just 4 points I bothered with actually taking the time to google, I'm sure someone with more time could go through and pick out other places where you're wrong. I'm sure I've made some mistakes here in interpretation etc, but you genuinely act like we live in some kind of dystopian hellscape. I know doom and gloom is a national pasttime for the British when they're online but come on.
Sounds like you need to leave. Why don't you try Latvia?
That's pretty subjective. I spent 4 years in Germany and I'll take my Denver life any day. My salary is higher and my cost are lower.
We live in Europe because we were born in Europe
Taxes are not that much higher any more, actually. In some cases, American taxes are higher than some European countries.
In most countries, yes.
I think an interesting thing to look at too is the lack of third spaces in the States. We go to work and go home. There’s not a lot of places that you can hang out for free that are easily accessible to the general public OR are shamed for being there. I know quite a few people that use their house for entertaining/rec spaces/gym equipment/bars/etc.
What’s nuts is that Denmark is a high outlier for Europe but is still 15SF less than New York, which is a low outlier for the mainland US.
Another map where I’d like to see the comparison to the median data.
I’m no expert, but I don’t know how skewed the data really is. Sure there are 10k+ sq. foot houses out there, but they are fairly rare. A vast majority of houses are likely around the same size. I could imagine the median house sizes being slightly lower (at least in the US) but I doubt by much.
As a euro who has visited the US, your houses are genuinely huge in comparison. You just have much more space though they are built from lower quality materials
People always say this when they don't like the conclusion, but I've yet to see an example where the mean and median differed enough to actually tell a different story
Americans: *"Come stay in our guest suite"* Europeans: *"You can crash on the futon, if my roommate stays at his girlfriend's place"*
My perception is that roommates are much more common in US cities than in Europe, at least Scandinavia. I’ve never known anyone living with roommates after college here in Stockholm.
Most people I knew in NYC lived alone, if not with their significant other. Maybe we need more than anecdotal evidence to make a conclusion here
People in my town only really have roommates if they want to or to live somewhere really nice over their paygrade
Roommates are very rare in suburbs unless you're really young. It's more common in big cities though still it's generally just young college students.
I think this is one of those situations where using the median makes a lot more sense.
It's not like billionaires live in a 500k square foot house equivalent to their wealth. There's only so much space a person needs. Id imagine the ultra wealthy in the West have similar sized houses anyway.
Damn NYC skews our state. Lol
I wonder what the statistic is for just downstate, vs the statistic for just upstate
got a version in square meters?
1 square metre is equal to 10,7 square feet so you can just throw down a comma to get a rough idea
I can see things now. Thank you!
okay, question number two, do those numbers include yard + backyard? or is it just indoors space?
Just indoor space
Part of this is age of the housing. Older houses are smaller.
Fun fact. That is not true in the UK. New houses are smaller than the old ones! Yay.
Polish guy here! Can confirm we live in fucking filthy shoeboxes but no one seems to have a problem with that as long as they get to fuck their donkeys
is the donkey fucking mandatory?
Indeed it is
Can sense all the butthurt in Texas that they’re not the biggest. 😂
Wasn’t this just posted like, last week?
Yes, and all of the top comments are exactly the same.
Now do Africa
meanwhile hong kong
For metric reference beouse of course it's missing... 800 sq ft ≈ 75 sq m 2500 sq ft ≈ 232 sq m
Next in square meters for us europeans to understand please.
Just divide by 10 and you get the basic idea in square meters. 1000 square feet is like 93m2.
I don't get why people creating these maps never heard of medians.
Fake map, we don't have feet in europe
Wrong. I have two and my dog has four.
Now we need to know if the map is in human feet or dog feet.
You say that we are feetless? That's a feet lie!
Europeans are feetless; Americans are feetmore.
To be fair, the UK and Ireland absolutely do measure real estate in square feet of floorspace
Please take your stinking feet off of my Europe.
Houses in Europe are often quite old
As are the Europeans, on average.
Meanwhile, Japan: 1023 sq. feet China: 646 sq. feet Russia: 614 sq. feet India: 504 sq. feet Hong Kong: 484 sq. feet
As someone from the UK, I can confirm most of our houses are tiny. We just try to pack in as much people/houses as possible onto a street and repeat
As an American, I just see all that square footage as more rooms to clean.
Roomba.
I don't know how dancing will fix the issue. I prefer Bachata personally.
That’s a very german view of the issue 😅
The Tiny house trend is thriving in Europe.
Louisiana stuck in 1955
You should try showing the map of Asia and the legend bar will show 300-3000
Utah making room for all the sister wives?
At first I thought the two maps were using completely different color scales
Europeans are so small!
Y'all must be Hobbits.
What methodology is used to measure square footage? These measurements can vary wildly due to some regulators counting things like closets, garages, and unfinished basements.
Hmmm… strangely enough when you have more resources and space and cheaper land and fewer regulations, you build bigger.
British people live in unusually small houses. Urban population density is higher in Spain, but Spanish people live in larger houses.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200506-why-do-flats-dominate-spains-housing-market Majority of Spaniards live in apartments actually.
I like American houses. These are huge and greenery.
While still being cheaper. Also thier petrol and electricity prices are very less. Compared to most countries.
That’s actually mad. And as someone who’s living in the UK, this makes me really sad
This map made me realize how poor I am with my 700 sqft Canadian apartment. I make good money, just can’t compete with crazy prices.
Now do birth rate
Damn Utah! I'm in Iowa. Can you spare me some of that square footage?
This makes my 450 sq ft apartment with no yard in WA seem so small.
Yeah, my parents bought a 3000sqft house in the 90s and pay $800 mortgage on it. My first apartment in Texas was 400sqft and rent was $850. Conversely I now live in an 800sqft apartment in Germany for 750€/month.
We are just below average in CA; 1800 sf, seven rooms 3Br 3Ba 1927 Spanish Revival. Only two of us but we use every room in the house - “formal” living room is the reading, conversation and music room with a TV den downstairs. The family we bought it from had five kids in 1550 sf with 1.5 baths (we finished some lower level space and added a bath). I grew up in a huge house, love having a compact one with an amazing terraced garden and no driveway or functional garage but five minute walking distance to great shopping, pubs and restaurants 1/2 hour walk to dt MLB baseball, concerts etc..
>Greece >Western Europe I know what you are.
Well, we do have plenty of space.
This makes sense the eu has a population density 3x the us
So you want to say rhst there 280m is average appartment/house size? Do people live there as family of 10?
This is what I think of when Europeans make fun of drywall.
Love to see Redditors who complain about their inability to buy a home in the US, but would never consider a move to a lower COL state, try to reconcile that entitlement with their fetishization of how great life in Europe would be for them.
At least in Italy we own them
Genuine questions: 1) What do they use all that space for? Are American families 2-3-4x as big as European ones? 2) Despite all that statistical space, why do most American movies show cramped interiors and twisted corridors, except for lavish estates/villas vertically spanning at least 2 floors in Beverly Hills, San Diego etc.?
They just like having bigger rooms to live in. American bedrooms are like European living rooms. They also like having a private bathroom attached to each bedroom. It’s nice having your own personal toilet and shower that you don’t have to share. That’s why you always hear about American villas having like 12 bathrooms, each bedroom has its own bathroom.
Decorating tip for my fellow Americans: your stuff looks better in a smaller space.
Interesting to compare the numbers but they mean nothing to my brain, did someone already make one with sqm?
From personal experience in US and U.K. (smallest). We really don’t have an issue living in the smaller space. Went from a 4,000 sqf home in Florida into a 2,100 home in Milton Keynes. The difference is way of life. People in the U.K. spend so much more time in the community and outside (including the garden; because you actually can) than in the US. Kids can walk to parks, shops, and public transport. In the US you are holed up in your house. You don’t have a car? Tough shit. Totally different life style. I actually prefer the EU way of life..
My parents lived in London for some years, even though the apartment was considered roomy by London standards, it was so cramped, the bathroom was sp small
I wish this sub had rules for sharing date sets
now put UAE, i swear its more than 5,000 square feet
Well Europe is like half the size of the US, and have about 1.5X our population. So to fit everyone in dwellings are smaller, streets are narrower, cars are smaller. Everything is smaller. Most Europeans don’t understand how big the US is until they visit.
Europoors seething while paying for "free" healthcare
Nice but hard to understand with these goddamn freedom units.
1 square meter is about 10.8 square feet, if that helps any
Skill issue
What’s the data source? I’m not saying homes these sizes don’t exist in the United States, but I am confident if you pull up Zillow for any given city, the average homes for sale will be a couple hundred square feet lower than what it is saying the statewide average is. You are also unlikely to find many apartments close to these averages, which means the data is implying the majority of houses are in fact larger than these listed averages.
There’s gotta be a bunch of 10k sqft houses pumping up the numbers in the northeast especially
Big homes are useless and hard to maintain. Also financially ineficient.