Reply to Millennials aren't going to buy your ugly mcmansions, silly Boomers!

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[quote=Anonymous]It should be a requirement to read the Wikipedia entry for McMansion before posting in these threads. In particular:

"The term "McMansion" is generally used to denote a new, or recent, multi-story house of no clear architectural style,which prizes superficial appearance, and sheer size, over quality."

There are variations on this but part of the definition always includes size over quality, namely quality of materials, of land, of neighborhood, of design, and so on.

Diamond rings are a good analogy. Given a set budget, some people prefer to balance the number of carats, on the one hand, with the quality of the diamond, on the other. Others prefer to max out the carats. Given unlimited money, everyone would max out quality and select their desired size. But true preferences are revealed under a budget constraint.

Related to this is the difference between a mansion and a mcmansion. Mansions can be new or historic, but are well-designed and well-constructed with attention to quality and detail. And, this is important, they are usually sited in expensive and historically exclusive neighborhoods with a high cost of land per square foot.

Whereas mcmansions are cheaply built with a useful life of less than 40 years, and are typically sited on very cheap farm land that has been subdivided for the purpose. Parts of Loudon county spring to mind.

Note that a well-constructed and nicely designed new construction large house in an expensive part of Bethesda, assuming it fits within existing zoning, is generally NOT a mcmansion. Mcmansions are by definition cheap and sited on cheap land in non-exclusive and/or newly created neighborhoods. If the house is very large for the lot, and garish and poor quality, then it could be a mcmansion, but usually the zoning in expensive neighborhoods prevents the kind of massing necessary for mcmansion status. NIMBYs perform a preventative role.

Sometimes mansions and mcmansions can be blurred together, for example a very large, expensive house ($10m+) that is considered by some to be ostentatious or in poor taste. This blurring of the lines can sometimes be simple difference of opinion or can sometimes reveal different preferences among different demographic groups. But these are not mcmansions per se because they are too expensive. A mcmansion cannot ever really be more than $3m purchase price and is typically in the $1.0-2.5 range.

Given these definitions, the question is really, for those millenials who can afford $1.5-2.0 for a house give or take, are they going to buy something higher quality, in a more expensive and historically desirable neighborhood, and 2000-3000 sq ft versus something that is (by definition!) lower quality and 5000-6000 sq ft in an inexpensive exurb.

I think the answer to this is pretty clear given what we know about millenials (nom-immigrant, at least, because that is what most of the research is about): they are likely to go for the smaller, higher quality home in the closer in, more desirable neighborhood. There is a clear trend away from millenials valuing large houses and exurban living. Note that this is NOT a District versus inside-beltway debate as some in this thread seem to think. It is more of an inside versus far-outside beltway debate.

This does not mean that very wealthy millenials won't opt for true mansions, nor that somewhat affluent millenials won't opt for the large-ish house in the exclusive suburban neighborhood.

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