Salon article about McMansions

[labrat]

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/13/let_them_eat_mcmansions_the_1_percent_income_inequality_and_new_fashioned_american_exess/

This definitely helped reinforce my desire to lead a mustachian lifestyle!

[Cassie]

Interesting article.  I have known people that have bought huge houses & then could not afford to furnish them. Not my friends but acquaintances.  I actually worked with someone that had a 5,000 sf home but due to his job they did a lot of entertaining and it was expected that they could host 100 people.  Plus they could afford it.   

[little_owl]

Sorry I'm not buying it.  The article was basically just a BS platform to spout off about income inequality.  I think if you really want to determine the source of mcmansions, one only needs to look at the long term trends in interest rates:

http://mortgage-x.com/trends.htm

The prime rate, and mortgage rates in general, has been dropping since 1980.  Money has become cheaper and cheaper just about every year for the past 30 years.  So what did people do with all this extra free money?  They spent it on homes, cars, and consumer debt!  Knock me over with a feather.  It's just human nature to push whatever boundaries there are, and interest rates are the boundary for mortgage affordability.  If the author was really being genuine about getting rid of mcmansions, he would have pushed for higher interest rates.  Of course he wasn't, so he didn't.

Which leads us to the zero-bound where we are at now.  The fed can't lower interest rates lower than zero, so now they're trying to make money even cheaper, and mcmansions even more affordable, through QE.  Declining wages and globalization are against the fed so it is entertaining to be part of this spectacle, but that's probably beyond the scope of this thread.

[brewer12345]

I cannot be bothered to read trite nonsense about one of my least favorite things in the world.  However, DW were walking the dogs on a public trail today that winds through suburbia and has any number of houses that look like commercial buildings to me.  All I could think was, "why on earth would anyone need that much interior space?"  I know for sure that they are not inhabited by polygamist Mormons or far right Christian "quiver full" types with a zillion kids in the family.

[Abe]

Here in Chicago there are a lot of new houses that look like commercial office buildings. I guess they are supposed to look modern, but just look cheap. Come home from an office building to another office building with a bed in it!

[greaper007]

What do you guys consider a McMansion, size, facade, neighborhood?   I have a house from 1974 that's 2700 sqft.    I'd imagine some people would call it a McMansion, but I just think it was a smart purchase.    At $275,000 it was less than just about any house I could buy where I was living in Denver proper.    I'm in the best school system in the area.   Taxes are only 1600 a year and I pay between $75 and $200 a month for all of our utilities.    Cleaning it's a bitch but that's more because I live with a 2 and a 5 year old.

[Cassie]

I know many people with that size home & is not considered a mansion.

[Jamesqf]

There are distinct differences (at least in my mind) between mansion, McMansion, and a large house.  The most obvious ones being that the McMansion is typically a veneer of architectural bling over shoddy construction, and the stereotypical 5000 sq ft house on a 10,000 square foot lot, in a development of similar houses crowded cheek to jowl, so that - if so inclined - you could probably piss out your bathroom window and hit your neighbor's toilet.  Your true mansion is much higher quality and on significant acreage*, while a simple large house eschews the bling.

*And probably has walls & plantings so that passers-by will at most catch glimpses of the grounds, while the point of the McMansion is to be seen.  Indeed, it almost always has landscape lighting arranged to show off the house at night.

[greaper007]

Good explanation James.    I think that was spot on.   

I like to look up people's houses on Zillow when I go to playdates in these neighborhoods.    I can never understand why a house that's only 500-1000 sq feet bigger, with a smaller lot is $250,000 more than my house.   

[ToughMother]

Sorry I'm not buying it.  The article was basically just a BS platform to spout off about income inequality.  I think if you really want to determine the source of mcmansions, one only needs to look at the long term trends in interest rates:

http://mortgage-x.com/trends.htm

The prime rate, and mortgage rates in general, has been dropping since 1980.  Money has become cheaper and cheaper just about every year for the past 30 years.  So what did people do with all this extra free money?  They spent it on homes, cars, and consumer debt!  Knock me over with a feather.  It's just human nature to push whatever boundaries there are, and interest rates are the boundary for mortgage affordability.  If the author was really being genuine about getting rid of mcmansions, he would have pushed for higher interest rates.  Of course he wasn't, so he didn't.

Which leads us to the zero-bound where we are at now.  The fed can't lower interest rates lower than zero, so now they're trying to make money even cheaper, and mcmansions even more affordable, through QE.  Declining wages and globalization are against the fed so it is entertaining to be part of this spectacle, but that's probably beyond the scope of this thread.

Looking at the data that you pointed us to, rates were lower in the 70s but there weren't McMansions then and when such houses came into existence, the mortgage rates were higher than the 70s.  So, I don't think your explanation is the story alone either.

[hybrid]

What do you guys consider a McMansion, size, facade, neighborhood?   I have a house from 1974 that's 2700 sqft.    I'd imagine some people would call it a McMansion, but I just think it was a smart purchase.    At $275,000 it was less than just about any house I could buy where I was living in Denver proper.    I'm in the best school system in the area.   Taxes are only 1600 a year and I pay between $75 and $200 a month for all of our utilities.    Cleaning it's a bitch but that's more because I live with a 2 and a 5 year old.

This. Our home is 2400 SF, built in 1962, a brick rancher, purchased for $224, taxes are about $1700. The former owner added on a 400 SF Florida Room that pushed it to its current size. Large, yes, but the bedrooms are small, the living areas are where the space is concentrated. We entertain a fair amount and our 5x9 ping pong table covered with a large tablecloth often doubles as seating for 12. Is it more house than we "need"? Oh, sure, probably, but it was a good value all the same. No one would confuse our large house with a McMansion.

[ShortInSeattle]

Years ago as newlyweds we lived in an apartment near a huge enclave of McMansions. We used to go for long walks through those neighborhoods and gawk.

The perfectly manicured lawns.
The soaring foyers.
The massive size.
The high end fixtures and fancy cars in the driveways.

They were impressive at first. We'd look at the flyers outside the for-sale homes and marvel at the high prices.

Our first weekend living in the neighborhood we walked down to the nearby grocery store and were shocked at all the new cars, the small children drinking from Starbucks cups, and the fact that all the cans of food in the grocery store were perfectly facing forward like little soldiers. Everything was so tidy it was practically sterile.

These people are so shiny, so rich, I thought.

I was impressed. And shocked.

Now I know that many of these folks were not in fact rich. They just spent a lot.  But at the time it felt like I'd been given a glimpse into another -better- world.