Housing at 250

Housing at 250

By John Gibbs, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research

We are pleased to announce a new series of articles for PD&R Edge called "Housing at 250." The series will run between now and July 2026 and will feature articles that celebrate the nation's 250th birthday through explorations of different topics around housing and community development and how they have changed over the past 250 years.

One of the cool things about this topic is that there are homes still standing from the founding of the nation. I can look out of my window in the HUD building to see the ferry carrying tourists up the Potomac River to visit the home of George Washington at Mount Vernon, just south of Alexandria, Virginia.

President George Washington presided over the first United States census in 1790, as required in the Constitution. Washington charged Thomas Jefferson with conducting the census. It cost roughly $41,000. That census is where we start this article.

The first census found that the newly created 13 states had 3.4 million people living in 600,000 homes. These homes were crowded; 62.9 percent had 5 or more people living in them, and the average household size was 5.74. The largest city was New York City, with 33,131 residents.

The new nation grew quickly. The few homes that existed were bursting at the seams. As table 1 shows, however, one very clear trend of the past 250 years is a shift from larger households to smaller households.

In 2020, the census for the 50 states showed a population of 331.4 million living in 126.8 million homes. The average household size has fallen considerably since 1790, to 2.61 people per home, with 10.8 percent of housing units having 5 or more people (down from 63 percent in 1790), and 27.6 percent of people living alone (compared with just 3.7 percent living alone in 1790). New York City is still our largest city, at 8.8 million people in 2020.

Table 1. Population, households, and household size, 1790 to 2020

				Percent Households by Persons per Household
Year	Population (Millions)	Households (Millions)	Persons Per Household	1	2	3 to 4	5+	Homeownership Rate
1790	3.4	0.6	5.74	3.7	7.8	25.5	62.9
1850	18.9	3.5	5.39	2.1	10.1	29.3	58.5
1860	26.3	5.1	5.16	2.9	10.7	31.7	54.6
1870	37.2	7.5	4.96	3.3	12.1	33.3	51.3
1880	48.1	9.8	4.91	4.2	13.1	33.1	49.6
1890	62.9	12.5						47.8
1900	72.8	16.0	4.55	6.0	16.5	35.0	42.5	46.7
1910	87.8	20.0	4.39	5.1	17.2	36.6	41.0	45.9
1920	101.9	24.1	4.23	5.3	19.2	37.9	37.5	45.6
1930	119.9	29.9	4.01					47.8
1940	128.4	34.9	3.68	7.7	24.8	40.5	27.1	43.6
1950	145.0	42.9	3.38	9.3	28.1	41.2	21.5	55.0
1960	174.4	53.0	3.29	13.3	28.0	36.1	22.6	61.9
1970	197.2	63.4	3.11	17.6	29.6	32.6	20.2	62.9
1980	221.1	80.4	2.75	22.7	31.3	32.8	13.2	64.4
1990	241.7	91.9	2.63	24.6	32.0	32.5	10.9	64.2
2000	273.2	105.5	2.59	25.8	32.6	30.7	10.9	66.2
2010	301.1	116.7	2.58	26.7	32.8	29.5	11.0	65.1
2020	331.4	126.8	2.61	27.6	32.9	28.6	10.8	63.1
2024	340.1	132.2	2.57					65.7

Source: Campbell Gibson. 2010. "American Demographic History Chartbook: 1790 to 2010", Figures 6.1, 6.2, 6.3; 2020 U.S. census data.

Household sizes fell steadily each decade from 1790 to 1990 and have since settled at approximately 2.6 people per housing unit.

The census did not start collecting data on homeownership until 1890, when it recorded a homeownership rate of 47.8 percent. This rate fell to 43.6 percent in 1940 after the Great Depression. Federal interventions to protect the U.S. banking system in the 1930s, including the creation of the Federal Housing Administration, and post-World War II suburban housing development made possible by interstates and automobiles led to a 20-point spike in homeownership between 1940 and 1980.  After declining due to the foreclosure crisis of 2008 and 2009, homeownership rates recovered following the COVID crisis of 2020 and 2021.

Although household size has fallen, the average square footage of our homes has grown steadily. The Survey of Construction, which is jointly sponsored by HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau, reflects this trend: in 1966 the average size of a newly built single-family home was 1,460 square feet. By 2023, that figure doubled to 2,933 square feet. In past centuries, the average home size was smaller still. Surviving records from the Federal Direct Tax of 1798 — now regarded by some as the first nationwide census of the country's houses — shed light on the size of houses in the late 18th century, with tax schedules from that period suggesting that there were tens of thousands of homes between 600 and 1,000 square feet and hundreds of thousands of smaller homes between 200 to 500 square feet, representing the bulk of the nation's residences.

Larger homes with fewer residents also meant that our homes have many more bedrooms than people. Data from the 2023 American Housing Survey show that the 133 million occupied homes in the United States, home to 321.8 million people, have 369.5 million bedrooms. Crowding does still exist; 5.5 million of those bedrooms have more than 2 people in them. But empty bedrooms are more common; there are 93.9 million empty bedrooms in occupied homes (that is, the number of bedrooms that exceed the number of residents living in housing units). I estimate that 63.4 million of these bedrooms are the "one extra" bedroom (for example, 2 people with 3 bedrooms); and 30.4 million are the "second extra" bedroom (for example, 2 people with 4 bedrooms).  As table 2 shows, there are 4 million single-person households living in homes with 4 or more bedrooms.

Table 2. Number of Occupied Housing Units (000s) by Bedrooms and Household Size (2023 American Housing Survey)

	Bedrooms
Persons Per Household	0	1	2	3	4+
1	823	10,584	11,979	12,126	4,059
2	125	3,241	12,501	19,568	10,206
3	20	549	4,244	8,859	5,511
4	0	951	2,359	7,506	6,691
5	4	91	808	3,029	3,817
6		23	229	1,049	1,401
7+		7	147	481	989
Households with fewer than 1 person per bedroom.     Households with more than 2 people per bedroom.

As Americans, we become attached to our homes and neighborhoods. This is a great thing. Our homes are not just a place to live but also contain memories.  

Our housing supply challenges today stem not from a lack of bedrooms but from high demand and a shortage of housing units that Americans can afford. Our homes, and the neighborhoods we live in, are a vitally important part of what makes America great. The "Housing at 250" series will explore different aspects of how America's housing and neighborhoods have changed over the past 250 years.