What do we prove with huge houses we can’t afford to pay for or even fill?

By David McElroy · April 17, 2012

About 10 years ago, I was at the home of a new political client for a photo shoot involving his family. He lived with a wife and two teen-age kids in a large, sprawling house that looked really impressive. When I got there, the candidate wasn’t home yet, but his daughter was expecting me and let me in.

I told her I wanted to look around at the different rooms to find the best place to shoot pictures. She started showing me the downstairs and then mentioned a large den upstairs with a fireplace that she thought might be nice, so we went to look. We walked up a massive staircase that led to two upper floors, one of which partially looked over the foyer and living room.

We walked down a couple of halls and I started feeling as though I was in a motel. There were doors everywhere. We looked at the den, but I finally asked her about all the other rooms.

“What’s in all of those rooms?” I asked. “It’s just the four of you who live here, isn’t it?”

It turns out that most of the rooms in the house where empty. She showed me. They were large and bare. The daughter couldn’t explain why they had all that empty space and she didn’t seem to understand why I found it odd to have all that much space for so few people.

That candidate didn’t run a serious race and he lost. I never dealt with him again. The only news I ever heard from him after that was when he had declared bankruptcy and lost his impressive home. So what was he trying to prove with that big, empty house? Why have so many people ended up with big houses they can’t afford and certainly don’t need?

I think some of it is cultural. We developed an attitude that bigger is better. And if you live in a neighborhood with houses that are big and expensive, that made you a better person. Or something like that.

The average home size in the United States has almost doubled since 1970, according to the National Association of Homebuilders. This trade group says the average house was 2,700 square feet in 2009, up from 1,400 square feet in 1970. We also have far bigger houses than the rest of the world, on average. According to these figures reported by the BBC (and attributed to the U.S. Census Bureau), the average home in the United States was 2,303 square feet, compared to 1,475 square feet for Denmark, 1,216 square feed for France and just 818 square feet in Great Britain. (The figures from the Census Bureau and the homebuilders are slightly different because the homebuilders would have used the size of new construction and the Census Bureau would use the average of all homes.)

I’ve been thinking about this in my own life for years, partly because I live in a place that’s too big for me. I have a townhouse that’s about 1,450 square feet. How much space do I really need? Probably about a fourth of that. But I pay for this much space and I heat it and cool it. Why? I’m not sure. It’s just the way we do things, I guess.

I’ve been thinking that maybe many of us would do better if we returned to smaller houses. For those in bigger cities with expensive real estate, prices are so high that home sizes aren’t huge for anyone other than the very wealthy. But for many of us, we’ve ended up in places far too big. Is this a problem? Yes, I think it is.

As long as real estate values are headed higher, it seems easy to keep moving to bigger and better houses, because the higher value will make it worth selling for a profit. But what about when values are flat or decline? What about when we face an inevitable economic downturn and it’s suddenly a struggle for people to make those monthly payments? All of a sudden, we’re faced with a crashing housing market, a financial sector teetering on the verge of collapse and angry people looking for others to blame that they’re in foreclosure.

Even if we can “afford” to have mortgages — in the sense of being able to easily make the payments — is it a smart thing to do? More and more, I’m thinking that it makes sense to build or buy something tiny for whatever cash you can come up with, then saving money until you can actually pay for something a bit bigger. I know there are tradeoffs — and I know that different size tradeoffs will be appropriate for different families — but I see far too many people who live in huge houses that they absolutely don’t need, yet they’re struggling to afford their lifestyles.

Take a look at the video below. It’s about a family of four — husband, wife and two kids — who live in a 168-square-foot house that they built for $12,000. It’s certainly not ideal (and it’s smaller than what I’d want with kids), but it’s what they needed to do after the economic downturn destroyed their business and led to their losing their home in 2008. Because they live in a tiny house that’s paid for, they’re able to save for another house — and when they buy it, they’ll own it outright.

So how did we ever get into this situation? As I said, I think culture has a lot to do with it, but I think lobbying pressure from the homebuilding industry, the financial industry and Realtors had a lot to do with it. Those groups have powerful lobbies in Washington. Do you think it’s just a coincidence that federal tax policies have subsidized the building and financing of bigger and bigger houses?

Realtors, builders and bankers want us to buy bigger and better houses. Builders want to build the houses. Realtors want to sell them. Banks want to make interest from the loans. (Speaking of loans, even if you’re not one of those with 30-year mortgages that might never be paid off, have you ever looked at an amortization schedule for your mortgage? Do you realize how much of your monthly payments are pure interest for the banks? Plug your own numbers in here. You might be surprised to see half of your monthly payment going to the bank, not toward your principal.)

If you want to take a chance by having a big, expensive house that could become a dead weight around your neck in times of financial trouble, that’s your business. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me to reduce costs and save money. Our culture has turned away from saving and from being prepared for the future. The recent downturn should have us reconsidering the wisdom of many of the decisions we’ve made.

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After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

Narcissists tend to turn their children into narcissists — and since a narcissist doesn’t realize he or she is a narcissist, there’s no bad intent. How does this happen? I watched a YouTube video over the weekend from an Australian psychologist who does a nice job of summarizing how it works. None of this is new to me, but I thought it was useful for those who haven’t spent years digging through books and articles about it. The same psychologist has an excellent summary of something which confuses a lot of people about narcissism. You’ve all seen examples of the loud, boisterous and overbearing narcissist, but what about the ones who are more introverted and vulnerable? This type is called a covert narcissist (or a vulnerable narcissist), and this is what my father was. In the first video, I strongly see myself in the ways my father treated me and in the second video, I see what my father was almost successful in making me become.

It’s National Dog Day in the U.S. and Lucy is here to remind you to go express love and appreciation to your favorite canine. Not only does your doggie friend give you love and affection, but he or she also protects your home from intruders — such as birds, squirrels, mail carriers and other undesirables who deserve to be barked at vigorously. Where would we be without that? And if you think this service is actually unnecessary, ask yourself how long it’s been since your home was the victim of a vicious squirrel attack. See? The doggie defense works. Keep barking at ’em, Lucy.

I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time over the last couple of years thinking and writing about love and connection. I’ve come to understand that this lack of love and connection is at the root of a lot of human tragedy and unhappiness, including addictions and depression. As I talked with others and researched the psychology behind the issues, I ran into the surprising fact that researchers are increasingly using psychedelic drugs to allow volunteers to have experiences which are giving them a sense of connection which they’ve lost — something that allows them to feel connected to love and God in a way they didn’t understand before — which is having dramatic effects in combating things such as depression and addictions. In this 15-minute TED talk — without an audience in the age of COVID-19 — Johns Hopkins researcher Mary Cosimano shares her experiences with guided psilocybin sessions being used to treat addiction, depression and end-of-life issues. One of her key observations is the importance of love and connection. She said that it seems love is literally part of the answer. In her role as director of guide/facilitator services for the program, Cosimano is responsible for training and supervising session facilitators.

It’s something I wrote four and a half years ago — in the desperation of loneliness — and it’s become my most popular article. It’s not my best writing. It’s raw and unpolished. But it seems as though a lot of people can identify with it. It’s called Missing someone creates intense physical sensations in my heart. Just to give you an idea how many people still read it, I had 11,586 people visit the page last month — from 2,907 cities and towns around the world. London sent the most readers for it, followed by New York, Westminster, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto and almost 3,000 more. I’ve noticed something interesting. It always gets the most hits from an area of the world in the late hours, right after midnight, and that breaks my heart — because I understand why. All these people are so lonely and are missing someone so much that they turn to a search engine looking for answers, so they stumble upon this piece. I wrote this late at night on the day after Christmas because my heart was breaking. I needed to express how much I missed someone, and a lot of people seem to identify with it. If you’re one of those people, I have no way of knowing who you are, but I empathize with you. I know why you hurt. I wish I could do more to help. I hurt with you, because after all this time, I still feel the same way.

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