My wife and I are in that age bracket where the thought of scaling down in size to have less to clean and less to maintain is a good thing:  we might actually do it one of these days when and if we give up on the dream that our kids will be able to afford to move within a couple of miles of our neighborhood and will visit us frequently with grandchildren.  Not likely-- and certainly less likely any time soon!

Still, I read here locally that developers were reducing the average size of a NEW house in our county, houses typically bought by younger families with children still in school, from nearly 2900 square feet (which seems enormous to me) down to a little over 2100 square feet.  Is the "supersize me" generation finally having a reality check and reducing their concrete foundation footprint at the same time they're being encouraged just about everywhere to reduce their 'carbon' footprint-- or is it just that smaller houses cost less to build and to buy and thus are more likely to fall within the conforming loan and qualifying guidelines? 

I wonder what the overall influence of the new reality surrounding mortgage availability will be on sociological phenomenons like the McMansion.  Seems we all can live on less, but only being denied more will make us do so-- until we're older and realize that more isn't better... just more.

Chris Hendricks