In a new trend three decades in the making, home square footage continues to grow at the expense of lot size. Homes built since 2015 take up 25 percent of their lot space, while homes built in 1975 take up only 13.9 percent. Some of the oldest homes in the country, built in the early 1800s, occupy less than 5 percent of the large lots on which they are built.
Despite the national trend, there are still areas with plenty of lot space. Connecticut's metros, Hartford, Bridgeport, and New Haven are all places where a home's footprint takes up less than 10 percent of its lot. In general, New England seems to be leading the nation in minimizing lot usage, while single-family homes in Philadelphia have one of the highest lot utilizations at 57.7 percent, Trulia's recent analysis shows.
Many people like the idea of living in a single-family home and having a yard to call your own along with some space between themselves and their neighbors. In fact, surveys suggest that even city dwelling millennials aspire to a more traditional American dream of living in a large home in the suburbs and mowing their lawn on weekends. Nearly half, 46% of millennials, would prefer to move into a larger home compared with just 13% who would like to downsize.
