Gargantuan tract homes dubbed McMansions that pushed 4,800 square feet dominated the Manteca housing market by mid-2005
The highest price ever paid for a two-story super-sized standard tract home with 4,306 square feet of living space plus a three-car garage was $752,000 in March of 2005. It was for a Seeno model home on Vasoncellos Avenue in Heritage Ranch just a couple of blocks south of Joshua Cowell School.
McMansions helped push the average square footage of a new home built in Manteca during 2005 to almost 3,400 square feet. Three years later by February of 2008 the average dropped to pre-1995 levels with 10 homes with an average of 1,577 square feet being built in Manteca. For all of 2008, the average home built barely topped 1,800 square feet.
Four years after that low point for housing size, big is making a comeback for new homes but in a somewhat different form.
Manteca builders in the first five months of 2012 have started 94 new homes with an average of 2,956 square feet each. That reflects an average increase in size since 2008 of over 1,100 square feet or 61 percent larger. Today’s average size is still 400 square feet smaller than 2005.
Several real estate agents as well as a builder noted the newer home market today has more established buyers as opposed to first-time buyers. They’re not as interested in the resale or foreclosure market while first-time buyers can get more house for the buck in resales.
The larger homes being built today in Manteca aren’t dominated by two-story models. Most are oversized one-story floor plans that cater to buyers who don’t want to contend with stairs.
Much like how McDonald’s - the namesake of McMansions - is reshaping its fast food footprint bigger is taking on a different look in the 2010s when it comes to Manteca housing. Homes are less geared toward growing families and more toward older families as well as what builders are calling “multi-generational living.”
A growing number of homes being sold have a secondary master bedroom suite with separate living areas that have access to the rest of the house as well as their own outside entrances.
It is a trend reflected in grown children continuing to live under the same roof as well as elderly parents living with their adult children.
The new trend in big is also applying pressure to builder profits.
In the past, two-story homes were viewed as gravy trains since you were essentially adding less expensive space between the set expenses represented by foundation and basic house infrastructure and the roof. The profit per square foot is significantly higher for a two-story home than a one-story for that reason.
Builders can still make money but the bigger one-story home is putting the squeeze on the size of those profits especially when combined with a housing market that is still in recovery mode.
The appetite for the old McMansions is not expected to return anytime soon - if at all.
One of the 4,400-square-foot homes in the Heritage Ranch neighborhood sold for over $400,000 less than the purchase price - for $225,000 back in 2009 when the McMansions crashed harder than any other housing in Manteca except the Cherry Lane condo conversions.
Real estate agents as well as property management firms indicated McMansions - while selling for a slightly better price than they were in 2009 - aren’t getting a lot of enthusiastic interest. They point to the high cost of maintenance and upkeep that includes heating and air conditioning as a factor that prompts many buyers and renters to cross them of their list.
