How many square feet is considered a small home?

We love the notion of the Tiny House movement, but living in such a sliver of square footage isn't feasible for most of us. Devoted cottage lovers, we believe that it's possible to live a big life in a small home. In fact, we think there's a lot of freedom in paring down. Why bother with maintaining any more than you really need? The real question is: How small is too small? We asked Lil Petrusnek, the Southern Living House Plans Manager, what's the best size for a house and we weren't too surprised with her response: 1500 square feet is the perfect size for a house. Here's what Petrusnek says:

Build Fewer, but Bigger Rooms

It's key to think big when you're planning how to use your 1,500 square feet! Design rooms that are large, but can have multiple purposes like a few oversized rooms, each with multiple purposes. As an empty nester, I dream of having only two glorious bedrooms – a master and guest room that are equal in size, and two-and-a-half bathrooms. If you must have three bedrooms, plan for one of the bedrooms to work in the layout as a home office, a den, or a nursery if needed.

Merge Your Kitchen and Dining Areas

Since the kitchen is one of the most valued spaces in the house, give it scale and proportion in the overall scheme by incorporating the dining space into the kitchen plan. Since most of the time is spent eating in the kitchen anyway, go ahead and make room for a dining area in here beyond just the island. Plan for an actual dining table for everyday meals as well as entertaining. Oftentimes, ample counter space and either a small piece of furniture or sturdy island-style, chopping block will work for food prep and serving so that dining and kitchen can be open to one another.

Keep the Living Room Separate

You've put a lot of emphasis on your combined kitchen and dining area, but don't pack all of your living into one open room. Make a separate living room to create a flow to your floor plan and intimacy to the rooms.

Capture the Natural Light

Making ways to capture light within the house is critical to making a relatively small house feel big. Always pay attention to the placement of doors and windows to enhance the light and frame views. The more views you have to the outside the more expansive your home will feel.

Maximize Your Outdoor Spaces

Make sure there's an easy indoor/outdoor relationship. A plan with an open flow onto a covered porch, screened porch, or a patio is a nice way to expand living and dining areas almost all- year-round.

Rethink Your Garage

Factor smart storage into structures like your garage. Build in a basement or an attic over the garage to house things like extra furniture or Christmas decorations. Also, rethink the placement of the garage. Site it and landscape it.

The average Australian house has a floor size of 186.3 square metres. However, that trend is increasing. From 2019-2020, the average size of a newly built home was 235.8 square meters – a 2.9% increase on the previous year, making this the largest increase in more than a decade.

The average Australian dwelling has 3 bedrooms and is on a block size of 414 square meters. Houses are the most common type of dwelling in Australia. For every five occupied Australian houses, there is just one occupied apartment.

There are a variety of ways to measure the size of a home, but the main indicator is the square meterage of the floor space. This gives a solid sense of how large the living areas of the house are and the space inside the home. Square footage is calculated by the multiplying length with width in each room, then adding the results together.

Another way to measure the size of an Australian home is to consider the dwelling, or the ratio of floor space to property i.e. is it a small home for its acreage? The size of a house is somewhat relative to its context. A house which might be considered large on a small suburban block would likely also be considered small if the same house was constructed on a 7-acre farm.

Similarly, house size can be relative to the size of the family. As a general rule of thumb, you can determine the size of a house relative to its inhabitants by dividing the space between each person. The ideal amount of square meters to have per person is often placed between 55-65m2.  Therefore, the ideal size for a 3 person home is around 168-195 square meters – hitting exactly around the parameters of an average Australian home. A four person home would ideally be around 223-260 square metres. However, there may be room for argument that children require less individual space than adults, so a home which would be considered small for a share-house could actually be the perfect size for a young family.

Australian homes are among the largest in the world. On average, European houses are far smaller than their Australian counterparts, often only measuring at 30-45 square metres. The United States has an average home size of 245.3 square metres, earning them the title of second largest homes on average in the world.

However, the gap between Australian homes and the rest of the world is only widening. Australia’s 2.9% increase in home size from traditional Australian houses over the past year set a precedent that many of its competitors have failed to follow. By contrast, the average size of a new home built in America has been seeing a steady decline for years now, falling by 3% (down to 233.1 square meters) during the same period of Australia’s drastic increase.

Setting another record, the average size of Australian apartments increased to a decade high in the span of just one year. The average apartment built in Australia over the past year was 136.8 square meters, a 6% increase from the previous year and more than double the average home size for many countries across the world.

Average House Size Australia: What is the average household size in Australia by type?

4 Bedroom House

The ideal size for a four person home is between 223 and 260 square metres. 4 bedroom homes are often the biggest affordable homes (the cost to build is still fairly reasonable compared to a 3 or 5 bedroom home) and while they are less common than 3 bedrooms, they are still fairly popular – and this is on the rise.

Approximately 44% of all housing in Australia has a 3 bedroom setup. However, this number has actually dropped from 50% in 1991. This is largely due to the rising popularity of 4 bedroom homes. Currently, just under one in every three Australian houses has four or more bedrooms.

3 Bedroom House

The most common Australian home layout, three bedrooms, is on average around 175 metres squared. This fluctuates slightly and many 3 bedroom homes will be above or smaller than the national average. Average family size 3 bedroom homes can usually be found on a block size of 474 square metres. 3 bedroom houses are some of the most sought after dwelling types in a few Australian suburbs such as Richmond (Victoria), Paddington (New South Wales), Howrah (Tasmania) and Indooroopilly (Queensland).

Townhouse

Townhouses are contemporary terraced buildings commonly found in the suburbs of large cities. They are space-efficient and usually have multiple levels with as many bedrooms as possible, though the most common size is 3. Townhouses are often the first choice accommodation for university students or young professionals living in share-houses. They make up for approximately 10% of all Australian housing.

The average size of a townhouse varies by state, but the largest townhouses on average are found in Victoria (155m2) and Victoria (155m2).

Apartment

Australian apartments are some of the largest in the world. Over the past year, the size of newly built Australian apartments has increased by 6% from the previous year, leaving the average size of an apartment constructed after 2019 at over 136 square meters. However, one bedroom or studio apartments are significantly smaller (and standard sizes seem to be shrinking with each year).

The average one bedroom apartment in Australia is around 50 meters squared, but an inner city studio apartment is likely to go as low as 24 square meters. Two bedroom apartments are likely to be around 65 square meters, where as little as a decade ago they were often at least 90 square metres.

General Sizing Variations

Regional houses are far larger than city homes on average. The largest type of home tends to be rural, followed by suburban houses, city terrace homes and then apartments.

Housing size also varies by state. The average house size m2 is the largest in the ACT at 256.3 m2 (2019-2020), followed closely by Victoria at 250.3 m2. NSW is third largest (235 m2) and Western Australia next (232.5 m2). Tasmania has the smallest houses on average at 179 m2 for new builds.

How many square feet is considered small for a house?

What is a small size house?

Is 1200 square feet small?

What size is a normal size house?