"Andy" wrote in message
...
D. Gerasimatos wrote:

However, I doubt that very many people buy more house than they need.
Lots
of people buy more expensive cars then they need, but I insist that it
is a rare bird who could've gotten away with a much smaller dwelling but
who just decided to go ahead and splurge on a bigger one.

By the way, do you really *need* a garage? Lots of folks don't have one.
You must be one of those people out to impress the Joneses.

Dimitri

I guess you haven't been living in the United States anytime in the last
20 years. People routinely buy much bigger houses than they need here.
Its almost become standard practice in the US upper middle class.
How else can you explain why the average size of a new house has gone up
at least 20-30% in the last 20 years but family sizes are the same or
smaller?

That's like saying people buy more medical care than they need today,
because 20 years ago they bought less. Or like saying that today people
routinely buy more computer than they need, because a generation ago almost
no one had a computer of any description. The possibility exists that 20
years ago, people "routinely" bought less house than they needed, probably
because that was the best they could do.