CNBC has officially made the call that the era of the “McMansion” is over – and good riddance. Neighborhoods filled with supersized cookie-cutter, bland tract homes crammed together have never been that appealing to me. If you’re not familiar with the term “McMansion”, CNBC defines it as follows:
What sets a McMansion apart from a regular mansion, according to Wikipedia, are a few characteristics: They’re tacky, they lack a definitive style and they have a “displeasingly jumbled appearance.”
Here in Southern California, I wouldn’t say that they lack a definitive style. They do have a style, the issue is that they have the same style as all the other cookie-cutter tract developments. They’re big tan boxes crammed together so close you could hand your neighbor the soap while you’re both taking showers. If you’re going to spend a million on a home, wouldn’t you rather live in an elegant, stately neighborhood where the homes are custom and unique, and have a little land around them for privacy? I know I would.
In 2006, just before the housing crash, I walked through a few model homes in a brand new McMansion neighborhood called Lake Hills Reserve in Riverside, CA. Granted, the houses were nice and spacious, but they’re just tract homes. The neighborhood looked like any other cookie cutter tract development in Southern California except for the “supersized” part. The homes were absurdly large with up to six bedrooms in some cases, 3,600 to 4,500 square feet, and all crammed in next to each other. At the time, the asking prices ranged between $800,000 and $1 million and the property tax rate was a whopping 1.25% (do the math on that one – yikes!). I remember thinking, “who the heck in Riverside is going to be able to afford these things?” Not only did the buyer have to cover the mortgage, insurance, and taxes, they had to pay for all the expensive things that come with buying a new home and making it your own: landscaping, painting, filling those myriad rooms with furniture, etc.
Not surprisingly, the housing bust was most unkind to the new McMansion neighborhoods of Riverside like it was to most of the Inland Empire. Check out the listing below (click for a larger view) for a 4-bedroom, 4,500 square foot McMansion on Rocky Bend Court currently listed for $499,000.
McMansion listing on Redfin in Riverside California priced 40% less than what it was first purchased for in 2006 (click for larger view).
McMansion listing showing steep taxes paid in 2009(click for larger view).
It first sold in 2006 for $906,500! Notice the taxes (circled)? Wow! Nearly $1,000/month was paid just for property taxes in 2009, and that probably was lower than the taxes paid in prior years because of the decline in home values.
In the exuberance of the housing boom, not only were McMansions absurd and unappealing in my opinion, they proved to be bankruptcies and foreclosures waiting to happen. I’m sure there are plenty of people who bought these homes that truly could afford them, but they paid a steep price when others bought them with pay option ARMs and finally reached their reckoning day.
-CH
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