Census Report Itemizes New Home Features

The U.S. Census Bureau has released pieces of its 2020 report, Characteristics of New Housing. This is a massive annual compilation of data on what builders are building and, hopefully, what buyers have been or will be buying. The browsable microdata will not be released for a while - typically it comes out in August - but here are some of what the Bureau considers highlights of the new report.

There were 912,000 single-family homes completed in 2020 with a median size of 2,261 square feet. All but 42,000 had air conditioning. Ninety thousand of those homes contained two bedroom or fewer while 29,000 had a maximum of 1.5 bathrooms. Homes with four bedrooms or more totaled 401,000 and 309,000 had at least three bathrooms.

Wood frame construction still predominates; 831,000 were built in the manner while most of the remainder (75,000) were framed using concrete. And, while surveys show a strong preference among pandemic weary buyers, only about one-third of new homes were built with a patio or porch and 71,000 had no outdoor features.

Of the 375,000 multifamily units completed last year, there were 372,000 conventional apartments and 3,000 were townhouses. One bedroom units made up 164,000 of the total while 38,000 had three bedrooms or more. The median size of multifamily units built for rent was 1,075 square feet, while the median of those built for sale was 1,306 square feet.

The Bureau also provided highlights of the 822,000 new single-family homes that sold last year, 739,000 of which were detached dwellings. The median size was slightly larger than those homes constructed last year, 2,330 square feet with 348,000 having three bedrooms.

The median price was $336,900 and the average was $391,900. Buyers purchased 570,000 of the homes using conventional financing and 37,000 were bought with cash.