Is It A Myth That All US Homes Are Huge?

Yes, Hatley is so so right on this! I know so many people that have lost or are about to lose their homes due to the job market and the economy. Even people that are lucky enough to have apartments are struggling to keep them as the rentals are so high. I live in low income housing and work full time and still struggle to pay my rent each month. The rent is based on income and should be very affordable but with the cost of gas and food and everything else going up, it really is tough. I don't know many people who own big luxury homes anymore. TV paints a very unrealistic picture of how things really are for most of us here.

I don't think she was making any assumptions or basing ideas. Just trying to learn which I commend her on because most people would go ahead and say something such as "all Americans are rich and live in big houses" just because the television says so instead of attempting to discover the truth. Its hard to know what the reality is if you've never been in the situation.

We do have people losing homes here in the UK as well you know. I have only visited America twice and that was Las Vegas. I know there is poverty in every country, not just your own and mine. I've seen images from New Orleans and the poverty there. I've seen the earthquake in Haiti on TV and know the poverty there. I can't help the fact I don't live in the US and have posted the discussion to find out more about the US housing AND other countries! I have not meant to offend anybody. It is difficult to sum up what I want to ask in one sentence and I am sure other people have the same problem. If you came over here you would realise that the home I LIVE IN is tiny and I don't moan about it do I? Oh, yes and don't get me started on the unemployed because I am also one of them and don't receive a penny off the government due to my husband working full-time. Go hide behind your avatar somewhere else.

I love that movie!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2hPpn4_Kcw at list you can see first 10 minutes of the movie...

I have never seen the movie in question but I think I've seen trailers for it do know what you are on about. I bet not every big house has an American flag waving at the front of it either.

BTW I don't live in Hollywood, just near it lol. The tradeoff for living on top of or near a big (or highly publicized) city is not worth it.

To be honest, I have no idea what the average-sized home is here in the UK. I do know, however, that homes that were built at the turn of the last century are not big enough as kids want their own rooms, etc. Many people have extensions on semi-detached houses (like my Mum) or conservatories to add space and also, value to their homes. Mum is a rarity in that the first home she and my Dad bought will be the last...and they moved in in 1969! Both my brother and I had already been born and we all lived with Mum's parents for a while until my Dad got the deposit together for the house they live in now. No such thing as 100% mortgages then..and the house is now paid for, something they haven't had to worry about for about 20 years, thankfully. They were lucky in the fact that they chose well and my Dad actually told a white lie about his earnings...so had to work way, way more harder to pay the mortgage, which was why he cried like a baby when he could no longer work due to problems with his shoulder and back. Fortunately, the early retirement money he got paid off the mortgage but there are many people in the same predicament now who have not had enough money to do that...and I sympathise greatly with them, I really do.

I had no idea about this until you mentioned it, which is what this discussion is all about. I needed educating on this subject and you kind people are providing me with information I would never have known about otherwise, so thank you.

My friend in Holland (countryside) has huge house, double my house...... I saw houses in Holland, I would like to exchange my house for house in Holland...tomorrow, want to swap?

But that is countryside. If you go to the cities it's as crap as matchbox. It's very difficult to have a big house, because the taxes are very high.

That's about the same size as the rooms in my house here in the UK. It's a 3 bedroomed house and the main rooms are all about 12' or so square. It was built in 1950 and has what we think of as plenty of land at the front and rear. The houses that they are building now though, while they might still have rooms of about the same size, are built on lots that are not much bigger than the house itself. Land here is very expensive and so the builders try to pack as many houses as possible onto the land in order to maximise their profits. There's nothing new about that though. I live in the North of England, and a lot of the housing here was built in the late 19th or early century and is what you'd call row housing and what we call terraced. If you have ever seen "Coronation Street", the housing on that fictional street does at least represent typical northern terraced housing. The front door opens either directly onto the street or onto a small front yard which is rarely more than 4 or 5 feet deep at the rear would be a small paved yard which, in the 19th century and well up into the 20th, would also have had the toilet. Inside, the front door might open directly into the front room behind which was the kitchen / dining room and with two bedrooms upstairs. The very poorest of these houses have been snce demolished but many others have been modernised generally by putting an extension on the back to take a bathroom. Typically, these houses will each be about 15 feet wide and perhaps 30 feet deep from the road. My Grandfather lived in such a house, the front door opened directly off the street into a hallway which led to the kitchen/dining room at the rear, there was a front room, which was reserved for formal use, and stairs leading to two bedrooms. The toilet was outside and my grandfather lived there until well into his 70's. I well remember having to use a chamberpot when we stayed with him from time to time. He also had a small workshop upstairs as well, (He was a master carpenter) but I have no idea how he managed to fit that in!

my roomie's folks have their house on 2 lots in a neighboring suburb and they have a lot of yard because of it - and my yard is big, but the city requires a 30 foot set back from the street - what? is my 1 block long street get widened? Go figure... We added on to the back to get a second bathroom and an extra little room we used to have the cat boxes in, but are currently using for storage because we can keep the cats OUT! I swear I need another SHED!!! I ONLY have 5 out in the back yard now!!! But one is stuffed with the other roomie's stuff

Thank you.. The airport in Singapore have been going through lots of changes over the years. There are up to 3 terminals now, including a hotel too. Electronics wise, there are lots of products from China, Japan and other countries. But as of recent, there have been new inventions for some electronic products, Singapore made. This is going to improve, I suppose over the years. You should come for a visit, and visit Sentosa. A nice island.

I think I read somewhere a British architect was responsible for the design of your airport. I hope I'm right lol.

Is Singapore overcrowded my friend? I would love to visit as I believe your airport is awesome. Is it still a famous place for electronics as a lot of ours seems to come from China these days.

I thought as much but wasn't sure. I mean, New York looks rather built-up to me from what I've seen on the TV, rather like London but the suburbian "image" I've always had in my brain is something like that road on "Desperate Housewives" which I know is totally silly of me!

Really all we've got to go on about what other countries look like is t.v. - unless of course we've been to the country ourselves... I've watched Desperate Housewives, but it's been a long time since I have, so I can't quite picture the road, I think I'm getting it mixed up with Army Wives, if you've ever seen that? For me London is a place where it always rains, but has lots of castles and beautiful greenery, not sure if that is true or not as I've never been to London.

London is a very historical city and there are lots of suburbs where people live, too many to mention here. I can think of Windsor Castle in the area but am struggling to think of any more as I don't live there. It's a great place to visit because there is so much going on, you would need at least a week to see everything..maybe longer. Carlisle (where I live) has a castle dating back to the 11th Century!

I guess it's all down to space isn't it? I believe the new houses that are built here in the UK have less space than houses built in the 20s, 30s and 40s, especially the gardens. My Mum's house and my in-laws' house are similar in the fact that they were built in the 1930s as far as I know...and their gardens reflect this. Massive is the word that springs to mind. They are so lucky. No way would I buy a "new-build" as they are called. Too small!

Hiya Janey, You are right about that you know. My Grans House was much bigger than any House I can remember with a huge back Garden. The front Garden was not up to much but the Back Garden was huge. Also our House in Wolverhampton was a semidetached and it had the biggest front and back garden in the Street. It was a target for a lot of kiddies to try and jump the hedge too (grin). Since then I look at the newer Houses around and they are way too small. One of my Nieces lives in Wellington Telford and her House is really very nice but also very tiny and she has five children but they do have quite a big back Garden thank goodness to let their steam off in. At the bottom of the Garden there are fields of countryside that stretch for miles. In a way they are so lucky as when you live in a Flat all you see are concrete blocks more often than not.

Hello again! Is it true that new-builds have plasterboard walls? No wonder they go up so fast!

A lot of people rent here in the US, but it is part of the 'American dream' to purchase a home. I guess it depends on your priorities and whether your job is stable, if you don't intend to stay somewhere very long and you don't have money for a down payment, usually renting is what people do. Right now real estate is a nightmare, a few years ago the prices spiked up way above what the actual value of anything was, and now everything is upside down, people owe more than double on a home that is only worth half of what it was valued at 2 or 3 years ago. Right now is a GREAT time for a first time home buyer to purchase a home, as long as they have a decent down payment. If you are a homeowner though, it's not so nice. It is impossible to sell right now unless you short sell - meaning you lose money on your investment and probably won't qualify to purchase another home.

The US is more like the UK than I thought with wanting to buy homes as opposed to renting. I had thought it was the other way round, so thank you for enlightening me on the subject.

Thanks for your comment, it is highly enlightening for me reading all this I must say. Is it true that people tend to rent in the US rather than buy their homes? We are obsessed with buying in the UK...and at over-inflated prices too. For the price of an average-sized semi-detached home one could buy a mansion in the USA...with a swimming pool!

Hi Karen, Welcome to MyLot. It's great to see another Brit here and I hope you are here for a long time to come. Yes, you are right, we have this illusion don't we (Desperate Housewives springs to mind) that all US homes are huge. However, many US citizens have kindly dispelled that idea saying that houses like that aren't as common as we might think. Oops! That's me told!

Yes, I read some of the responses you got after I posted my comment and discovered that some Americans seem quite angry about this issue!! But I think it's a completely valid viewpoint - especially as I agree with you on it, LOL!

Also - I've noticed that older established neighborhoods or communities may have bigger lots. For instance, my neighborhood has almost 1/2 acre lots. We have a HUGE yard, half of which we do nothing with. The homes are average size, probably 1800-2200 square feet. There are some new developments right down the street from me and the homes themselves are much larger - 3400 square feet - but the land the house is built on is TINY, we're talking there's maybe 20 feet from the slider to the back fence lol. You can probably put in a patio and some deck chairs and have a bbq grill but you can't put in a pool, a climber or swing set for kids, there'd be no room to put up a tent and camp in the back yard, add a nice fountain, etc. I guess that's the tradeoff, do you want more land or a bigger house? If you custom design you can probably buy two lots of land and have the house built in the middle, thus giving you a larger property, but that would be prohibitively expensive for most people.

I'm beginning to understand this a bit better now, especially after reading your post, so thanks for that.

Goodness me, I'd get lost in a house that big! It must cost a lot to heat the place. I know of people down Mum's street (all have 3 bedrooms) that live in their houses all by their lonesome. I'd be tempted to sell up and buy a flat although gardens may be an added attraction there as they are large and not overlooked...well they are, by a cemetery but you can only see a wall and trees, no headstones!

Fox News, CBS News and others aren't interested in showing poverty and therein lies the problem. Until they do the rest of the world will have a rose-tinted view of the US (which is wrong) but is a fact. I am under no illusion that poverty exists all over the world. I'm not that shallow. Shacks in the US, Shanty Towns in South Africa and Brazil, slums in India, deprived Housing Estates here in the UK...it goes on and on. In this discussion I just regret the word "all" that I used to start this off...and I was very new then so now I know better. Thanks for keeping this discussion alive, it's much appreciated.

I suppose the UK is similar in the fact that - depending on when the houses were built and what style - that determines their size. For example, a semi-detached house would be bigger with more land than a terraced house and a detached house is even bigger due to the land its built on. We have had spells of major housebuilding in this country (usually after wars) and a few concrete high-rises went up in the 1960s, but major housebuilding hasn't materialised in England for a very long time. Down south they are worried about houses being built on the Green Belt as it's called but the only alternative (as I see it) is to build up but put more thought into it than the 1960s versions that all look the same. We live in a terraced house and they tended to be built early on in the 20th Century for workers who toiled in steel foundries and the like. Those foundries are long gone but the houses remain, which is just as well because they are the only houses first time buyers can afford.

Are you talking about a master bedroom with an attached separate bathroom and walk in closet? That's normal in most larger homes built after the early 80s. Newer homes - built in the last few years - sometimes have more than one suite, which is nice if you have regular company, such as parents, grown kids visiting home from college, or friends from out of state. We have a master suite in our house, we don't have a second one but that's a preference for another house if we move.

In the UK we seem to have caught on with en-suite bedrooms. I'm not that bothered about them, to be honest unless I was in a large family. As there are only 2 of us here it's not warranted. Does that come from the US or is that a myth as well?

We have such a thing as "Static caravans" which I think are great. They are becoming more and more popular with people who can't afford general housing.