The housing market is out of control. Mortgage interest rates have been continuously increasing for several years and listing prices are through the roof. What’s even worse is that inventory is in turmoil; there are barely any houses available nationwide and the houses that do become available are going for even above asking price. Some say that the United States may be on the verge of a housing crisis. Without an end in sight, the team at Builder Pad conducted a study to see how much smaller a five hundred thousand dollar house has become in the past five years. $500,000 is a lot of money to most people and was once enough to buy a home that could be considered a mansion. Today, that mansion is quite a bit smaller than it once was. Builder Pad found that a $500K house has become over 50% smaller in Montana in the past 5 years. A $500K house is now 1,557.60 square feet smaller than it was in 2018. While Montana saw the largest percentage decrease in a $500K house, Kansas saw the biggest decrease in square feet. In Kansas, a $500K house has become $2,280.48 square feet smaller from 2018 to 2023.
On the flip side, some states did not experience as severe of a real estate cost increase over the past five years. Hawaii was the state where a $500K house lost the least square feet at a loss of 273.47 and Maryland was the state that lost the least percentage of square feet at 22.42%. While Hawaii and Maryland appear to have been impacted the least, these figures are still significant and still represent a steep increase in housing prices and affordability for millions of families. Here are the top 5 states that have lost the most square feet from 2018 to 2023:
- Kansas – 2,280.46
- Indiana – 2,101.45
- Oklahoma – 1,996.45
- Arkansas – 1,886.67
- Alabama – 1,815.54
