Homebuilders pivot to making smaller, more affordable houses🧸

Video Transcript

Houses are getting smaller and new homes are shrinking as America's home builders try to give buyers more affordable options.

Yahoo Finance's Danny Romero has more on how much smaller these homes are now, Danny, what do you have for us?

Maddie?

The strategy to build smaller homes is entirely affordability driven buyers, especially first time home buyers are dealing with high home prices, rising mortgage rates and low inventory.

And so with building smaller homes allows builders to keep prices down.

So what is the average square footage of a new home?

Data from the census bureau shows that the average new home is about 2003 174 square feet in the fourth quarter last year.

Now that is lower than the 2468 square feet reported in the prior year.

So that's a 94 square feet difference, the size of a small secondary bedroom.

Now, if we compare that to the home builders like Dr Horton, one of the biggest home builders out there, they reported that the average square footage for homes close in the most recent quarter was 1980 square feet that is significantly lower than what the Census Bureau has reported so far.

Mattie.

So I'm curious about kind of what the impact of that might be on the prices for from the consumer perspective.

But more broadly, how are builders able to achieve these smaller houses?

Like what exactly are they taken out?

Are they taking out a second bathroom?

What is it close, Maddie.

It's all about thinking creatively and so designers are actually replacing multiple living and dining spaces with in kitchens and flex spaces.

So that allows them for, for the kitchen to be a lot bigger, a lot more open space.

Another trend that consumers are really liking is that they want less dead space in their primary bedroom.

So they really are opting for a built in workspace.

Uh Another thing is that bathrooms are are staying similar in size.

But another thing is that consumers are saying, you know what, we don't really want a bathtub.

So I guess no bubble baths for these consumers.

Another thing I just want to wrap it up here is that Taylor Morrison, another homebuilder said that they noticed that consumers are not really using foyers, front porches or oversized bedrooms.

And so that really allows them to kind of shrink the size of a home.

But overall, I did speak with one customer who did buy a new home recently from Taylor Morrison and she said that she was really focused on building wealth and equity rather than really the size of a home maddie.

All right, it's interesting.

Danny us New Yorkers know the room for a bed dynamic.

Very well.

So interesting to see that spreading out.

Thank you so much.

That was Danny Romero from our very own Yahoo.

Finance.

Appreciate it.

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Dale was a hopeless romantic and had never found the woman he was looking for. That meant he had only one option to get a child - adoption. When he turned 44, he decided that he had waited long enough and filled in the application form.

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Dale didn’t know that the little girl would not only turn his life upside down but would also disappoint him in a way no one else could.

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Dale wouldn’t let the opportunity slip through his fingers and immediately agreed. He had no idea that the agency was keeping things from him.

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He decided to visit her, but she was nowhere to be found when he arrived. The college told him that she had dropped out after her first semester.

5/13/24 Don't Get Caught Unprepared: Verify if Your Social Security Office is Open for Business!

Social Security Office Closures Announced for May, June, and July – Plan Accordingly

Don't Get Caught Unprepared: Verify if Your Social Security Office is Open for Business!

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Social Security payments will not be sent on the third Wednesday of the month due to the Juneteenth holiday

Although some people may believe that the Social Security offices are always open, they are not. It is true that you can do most things online and you can even make use of automated telephone services.

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If you want help from Social Security on a federal holiday, you must call 1-800-772-1213. If you are either hard of hearing or deaf, you can use this telephone number instead: 1-800-325-0778.

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According to the Social Security Administration, May 27 is a federal holiday and its offices will be closed. For your information, May 27 is Memorial Day and that is the reason why all offices will not be open.

If you really want to visit a Social Security office in May, make sure you make an appointment for any other day. There are usually open Monday through Friday. The service hours are 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. local time.