Never Mind Shrinking Households, Builders Are Adding Bedrooms

Of the just over a million new single-family houses completed in the US last year, 490,000 had four or more bedrooms. That worked out to a 48% share, the highest since the US Census Bureau started keeping track in 1973—and more than double the percentage in 1973.

This might seem a little perverse in a country where almost two-thirds of households now consist of one or two people, and only 21% of four or more. But there are explanations. One is that apartments in the US have headed in the opposite direction, with 52% of multifamily units completed in 2022 consisting of one-bedrooms or studios, the highest percentage since that data series started in 1978. Another is that a lot of those extra bedrooms in new single-family houses aren’t really intended for people to sleep in.