Real estate experts reveal the standard home feature that is becoming extinct as properties shrink

Smaller homes are dominating the market and designers are eliminating one surprising feature to make the most of the space, experts revealed.

The median price of homes for sale in June remained stable compared to last year, but the median price per square foot grew by 3.4 percent, indicating that the inventory of smaller and more affordable homes has grown, according to Realtor.com.

A recent survey of architectural designers by John Burns Research and Consulting found that designers are removing hallways from their plans.

Rather than making rooms smaller to reduce overall home sizes, designers said they are eliminating unnecessary circulation space by axing hallways. 

'Homes are shrinking to become more affordable, but we still need the same number of rooms and features (like bedrooms, home offices, etc.), ' Mikaela Arroyo, vice president of the New Home Trends Institute within Burns told Forbes.

Smaller and more affordable homes are dominating the market, and architectural designs are removing hallways from their plans to keep up with demand

'Hallways aren't places we spend time, so we can make them smaller without much impact on the homebuyer, as long as the house still flows well.'

Single-family homes had a median 2,140 square feet of floor space in the first quarter of 2024, the U.S Census Bureau found, down 116 square feet from the same period in 2023. 

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Jenni Nichols, vice president of design for John Burns Research and Consulting, told Realtor.com that 43 percent of designers worked on smaller projects in 2023 than the year before and 27 percent reduced the size of their projects to save on costs.

'Circulation space like hallways use square footage, while typically not providing any function, so they become one of the features that are easy to cut back on,' Nichols said.

'As homes shrink, people want and need the square footage to go to places they use, not to wasted space.'  

Odeh Kheir, regional vice president of value engineering and architectural services for design company Taylor Morrison, their company is focusing on designing homes with fewer hallways.

'In Texas, we are designing our homes with fewer hallways as much as feasible,' he said.

'There are many benefits of this trend for new home construction, including more square footage for homeowners to enjoy, a better flow around the home, more natural light, reduced energy costs and savings on construction costs.'

Rather than making rooms smaller to reduce overall home sizes, designers said they are eliminating unnecessary circulation space by axing hallways

While eliminating hallways, designers are adding more flex spaces - rooms that can be used for multiple purposed - to give homeowners more options to maximize their space, according to the Burns survey. 

Real estate agents said their clients are looking for small homer for a variety of reasons including wanting easier maintenance and people have less belongings.

'I work with plenty of buyers who downsize to avoid the maintenance and upkeep associated with larger homes,' said Cindy Allen, a real estate agent with DFW Moves in Texas.

'Years ago, we had televisions that were the size of large moving boxes, and we had stereo equipment with a turntable, tape player, and speakers the size of 10-year-olds,' Georgia real estate agent Bruce Ailion said.

'Today, the TV is flat against the wall, and all our music is in a smartphone in our back pockets.'