Amy Scott

I was really struck by a figure about up to 60 percent of homes sit largely unused, which is really no surprise when you drive by these big houses and you wonder who lives there and what are they doing with all those rooms?

That's right.

In fact, just three rooms that get almost all the attention, which is the dining room, the kitchen and the family room.

And you can have a 1,200 square foot home.

And if it's really designed around those places where you gather and you make social connections, that's going to mean a lot more for your happiness than having a game room or another garage or something like that.

And the real problem is not that a big house makes you unhappy, although that can happen.

It's really what we give up in pursuit of it.

So when you're overstressed, when you're commuting long distances and

and you have to spend more money to maintain this, you actually undermine the things that do make you happy, which is how do I relate to my kids?

How much time do I have?

Do I know my neighbors?

Can I walk places?

And ultimately, there are big homes that in many cases actually reduce our happiness overall.

Yeah.

So I want to explore what's happening now because for many decades, home size was increasing.

But in recent years, it's actually started to shrink again.

And is that all about affordability?

It's easy to assume that based on what's happening with prices and mortgage rates.

It's a great question.

I don't know if we fully understand all the factors there, but you're absolutely right.