New homes are getting smaller. That could be big news for first-time buyers | CNN Business

Bigger may not always be better: According to a National Association of Homebuilders survey, 17% of homebuilders said they built homes on smaller lots in 2023 to support home sales, and 14% said they built more townhouses. CNN — After years of saving, Jordyn Carias and her partner purchased a home for the first time last month. To find a place that didn’t break the bank, she said, they had to go smaller. “We had a lot of things we wanted in our first home, but after looking at the price range, we had to reassess,” Carias, a graphic designer who lives in Muscatine, Iowa, said. Compared to other countries, America is known for bigger cars, portions and take-out coffee cup sizes. For most of recent history, Americans have also wanted bigger homes — but now that’s changing. For most of the last half-century, new single-family homes kept growing. In 1973, the median size of completed single-family homes was 1,525 square feet, according to US Census data. By 2015, that number had ballooned t...