Might be another good time to contact your representatives and guess what, I’m not talking about any passenger rail legislation. Kenneth Hamey of the Washington Post covered one of John Dingell’s uh, dingleberry-ish ideas. He wants to eliminate mortgage deductions on ‘McMansions’ or any home of 3,000 square feet of living space or more. This involves the normal deduction you get when you buy your home; you get to deduct the interest portion of your payments on your mortgage.
I would think, regardless of how you feel about McMansions, you can see the flaws in this plan. I would think trying to dictate people’s home buying habits by hitting them in their pocket books is a bit too radical for me. People will adjust their buying styles when their pocket books dictate, when their family size dictates, their salaries….yes I could go on.
I have a house listed in Eco Village on W. 58thStreet. It has solar panels on the garage roof that help provide electricity. My client pays about $29/month, even when he’s cranking up the a/c. His house is about 800 square foot of space larger than mine. Mine is much less ‘green.’ Dingell’s argument that the McMansion footprint has to affect the carbon emission footprint is uh, not very scientific.
h/t to Linda Davis, my pal and a Broker in Connecticut, for alerting me to this. I’m hoping it will not get very far, but just in case, you might want to let your Congress people know how you feel. Peace Out – 3C
5 responses so far ↓
1 Elaine Reese // Oct 24, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I would hardly call a 3000 sq ft home a McMansion! That’s just a regular sized home for a family with a couple kids. It would be a shame to take away this deduction for these young, middle income families.
I would consider a McMansion to be over 10,000 sq ft or so.
Elaine Reeses last blog post..Here’s a primer on being a Buckeye if you’re relocating here
2 Carole Cohen // Oct 24, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Hi Elaine, I think the issue is size and quality even though this bill only refers to size. The original term is a slam at homes 3,000 sq feet or larger that are mass produced into subdivisions, much like the levittown homes of days gone by, only larger. They say they are not true mansion quality (so that I guess means they can be smaller) – and I think it was originally coined by some environmental group. Decades ago.
I agree with you, 3,000 sq. feet is not huge. All in all it’s a dumb bill!
3 Lee Hisey // Oct 27, 2008 at 8:49 am
My notes show that in 1970 the average size home was 1,400 square feet. In 2004, despite the family unit shrinking, it was at 2,330 square feet. (National Association of Home Builders) A quick internet search just now used a 2,349 sq. ft. number in the U.S. currently.
Unless you have a larger than average family that is a large house involving a large amount of resources, energy in it’s construction, waste from it’s construction, etc. That said it could still be far “greener” than a 1,500 square foot house.
I agree that it shouldn’t be based on square foot but rather construction methods, energy used in construction, waste, LEED rating, etc. The size of the structure could be a small part of a comprehensive formula.
Maybe a tax incentive for “Green” building rather than pulling a deduction?
4 Carole Cohen // Oct 27, 2008 at 10:20 am
Hi Lee thanks for your thoughts. We are of like minds in terms of what type of construction should be promoted – I believe transit oriented development and green construction should be the only thing receiving the 100% tax abatement, for example (for 15 yrs) that the City of Cleveland gives out. The across the board abatement served its purpose and now how to get that abatement should be revisited.
As for size, well, I’m not a fan of mcmansions and yes it’s true, larger construction projects use more natural resources. No doubt about it. I think maybe having individual communities with bldg codes determine extra fees (thinking out loud now) for homes that are over a certain size might be a better way to police this. I would hate to see home owners get the shaft tax wise for something that was considered legitimate when their homes went up out of the ground. I think we basically agree.
My house is just a tad over 1300 sq feet and I lamented for the first two yrs I was here that I had downsized too much. Now I realize it’s a matter of how the space is used and the storage I can incorporate into it, not the overall sq. footage.
It sounds like you are in real estate too, so this is something you have probably talked about a lot with clients or colleagues, but, back in the day, families were raised with one bathroom and three or four bedrooms, no matter how many kids that family had; and we say all the time now, how did they do that? lol. So it’s become a cultural thing to have more than one bathroom. Just as more than 2500 sq feet has become a goal for many. Maybe our current economic and environmental climate will now give people pause to think about how much house they truly need.
5 Ron Patterson // Mar 7, 2009 at 1:55 pm
This whole idea of higher square footage consuming more energy is nothing short of garbage! I’ve seen many cracker boxes and condo’s thrown together by “get rich quick” artists in the 1,000 to 1,500 sq ft range that have no insulation and hog energy. I built my retirement home of 3,200 + sq ft with max outside wall insulation plus full 4 inch brick and Peachtree windows with wood frame, double glaze, argon filled, low E squared glass with an excellent UV rating and full ceiling insulation of 2 varieties with an R factor of 70. When we have 15 to 20 guests at ZERO degrees outside, body heat warms the house warmer than the furnace is set.
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