Too much house

I’ve heard people comment that there must not be a market for modestly sized single-family homes, or they would be built. Easton Developer Nick Mirrione does not see it that way. He is trying to build cottage homes in Easton, and he’s been knocking on doors to recruit supporters. In a presentation he did for us at Pioneer, he noted that for the first time in history, more than half of the households in the U.S. are not married couple households. He would like to build homes for the more than 50% of MA households that either do not have children or are single parents with children. The McMansion is often too much house for this demographic. Try as he might, though, getting communities to allow construction of cottage homes is no easy task.

With MA communities prohibiting this kind of housing, Mirrione had to go to Washington state to find examples of it. The Cottage Company in WA has built lots of it, and the homes are very appealing. I wish we could find homes like that around here.