Australia Overtakes Title of World’s Biggest Homes

Huffington Post

For the first time in over a decade the average size of home in the United States has shrunk while the average home size in Australia grew 10 percent making them the largest in the world for the 2008/2009 financial year.  This is believed to be largely due to the recession in the United States.  People can’t afford to build bigger and better and larger home prices are plummeting causing builders to slow building.  The average home size in America right now has gone down to 201.5 square meters or 2,169 square feet from 212 square meters or 2,282 square feet while Australian homes are averaging a record 214.6 square meters (2,310 sq ft).

Houses are getting bigger in Australia and so are the families.  Kids are staying home longer and population is rising causing the average number of people living in a home to increase from 2.51 to 2.56 according to the Australian Board of Statistic.  This is the first rise of this nature in over 100 years.  This is due in part to the cost of housing and moving and also a housing shortage.  Population is growing faster than builders can accomodate and Australians are deciding to make the best of their current resources.  Larger homes for more people are more efficient than multiple smaller homes for fewer individuals.

Homes in other parts of the world are far smaller with Denmark boasting the largest homes in Europe at 137 square meters.  The next closest is Greece with the average home size sitting at 126 square meters and then the Netherlands at 115.5 square meters.  The smallest home size in Europe is the United Kingdom where houses are only 76 square meters on average.