Solar NewtSources and credits
Why America Stopped Building Small Homes
In 1950 a new house in Levittown cost $7,990. Last year about 5 of every 100 houses built for sale in America were small enough to count as a starter home, and the video asks why builders mostly stopped building them. This page lists every source behind the video's claims and credits every piece of footage, image, sound and music in it.
Figures are dated in the video and below. Snapshot numbers were current when the video was locked in September 2026 and will move.
Chapters
- 0:00The house people used to buy first
- 1:46The small house was a government design
- 3:51Who stopped building it
- 6:02The builder's ledger for one house
- 9:20The lot, and the rules about its size
- 10:54What Houston did with a smaller lot
- 12:13When the buyer ran out of room
- 14:57What would bring it back
Sources (59)
Grouped by the part of the story they support. The builders' cost figures come from a survey of 41 builders that the home builders' association says is not a national average, and the video names it each time. Buyer surveys, model results and one study's zoning estimate are attributed rather than stated as fact, and the two counts of first-time buyers' age that disagree are both shown.
The small house, 1937 to 1969
- Federal Housing Administration, Technical Bulletin No. 4, Principles of Planning Small Houses, 1937 revision and 1940 edition
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 1231, New Housing and Its Materials, 1940 to 56, Table 1 and Appendix B (FRASER)
- Leo Grebler, "New Housebuilding under FHA and VA Programs," National Bureau of Economic Research, 1953, Table 1
- "Housing: Up from the Potato Fields," Time, July 3, 1950; Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U (series CUUR0000SA0) for the conversions to today's dollars
- Levittown Public Library, Levittown History Collection, "Facts & Trivia"
- Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, "Levittowns"
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, "The Evolution of VA Home Loan Guaranty Service"
- HUD Office of Policy Development and Research, The Affordable Housing Demonstration: Case Studies (HUD-004434)
- U.S. Census Bureau and HUD, Construction Reports C25, Characteristics of New One-Family Homes: 1969, Table 6 (floor area by type of financing)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Table HH-6, average household size
How big new houses got, 1973 to 2025
- U.S. Census Bureau, Characteristics of New Housing: median and average floor area of new single-family houses completed, and floor-area bands by purpose of construction (built for sale, owner-built, contractor-built), national and by region
- Freddie Mac, "Housing Supply: A Growing Deficit," research note, May 2021 (entry-level completions, houses of 1,400 square feet or less)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Characteristics of New Housing: lot size of new single-family houses sold; Data Highlights from 2025 Characteristics of New Housing
- U.S. Census Bureau, Characteristics of New Housing: median and average sales price, and new houses sold by sales price; Characteristics of New Housing 2006 (C25 annual)
- U.S. Census Bureau, New Residential Construction, single-family completions, annual
- U.S. Census Bureau, Characteristics of New Housing: bathrooms and bedrooms in new single-family houses completed
The builder's ledger
- National Association of Home Builders, Cost of Constructing a Home, 2024, January 2025 (a survey of 41 builders, which the association says is not a national average)
- Paul Emrath, "Economies of Scale in Single-family Home Construction," NAHB Eye On Housing, September 3, 2024 (Census Survey of Construction, homes started in 2023; excludes the lot)
- Duncan Associates, National Impact Fee Survey: 2019
- Terner Center for Housing Innovation, UC Berkeley, It All Adds Up: The Cost of Housing Development Fees in Seven California Cities, March 2018
- City of Raleigh, Development Fee Guide, July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027
- Austin Water, rates and fees (water and wastewater impact fees)
- Gyourko and Krimmel, "The Impact of Local Residential Land Use Restrictions on Land Values Across and Within Single Family Housing Markets," NBER Working Paper 28993, 2021
- National Association of Home Builders, Government Regulation in the Price of a New Home, 2016, 2021 and 2026 editions
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, labor productivity and costs for selected construction industries (single-family residential construction)
- NAHB Eye On Housing, "Top Ten Builder Share Rises Again in 2024" (a tally of Builder magazine data); Builder magazine, Builder 100, 2025 and 2026 lists
- U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, national files
- D.R. Horton, Form 10-K, fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2025; Lennar Corporation, Form 10-K, fiscal 2025
- Federal Housing Finance Agency, "Land Price Appreciation During the COVID-19 Pandemic" and data file
The lot, the rules, and Houston
- Gyourko, Hartley and Krimmel, the Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index, NBER Working Paper 26573 (the 2006 and 2018 surveys)
- Jaehee Song, "The Effects of Residential Zoning in U.S. Housing Markets," Journal of Urban Economics
- HUD PD&R and NAHB Research Center, Study of Subdivision Requirements as a Regulatory Barrier, April 2007
- Spalding County, Georgia, Code of Ordinances, Appendix IV (Zoning), Article 7, Section 704
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide, B4-1.3-05, Improvements Section of the Appraisal Report
- Emily Hamilton, "The Effects of Minimum-Lot-Size Reform on Houston Land Values," Cityscape 26(3), HUD, 2024; City of Houston Code of Ordinances, Chapter 42, Section 42-184 (redline); Ordinance 2013-343
- NYU Furman Center, Here Come the Tall Skinny Houses, 2023 (Harris County assessed values, 2020; reporting Wegmann, 2020, and other counts)
- Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session, Senate Bill 15, enrolled (Local Government Code Section 211.054)
- Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, "Unpacking supply and demand in rent trends since the Minneapolis 2040 plan," August 25, 2025; Terner Center, "SB 9 Turns One"
- U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, state and metropolitan annual files, 2025
What buyers want, and the first-time buyer
- Rose Quint, "What Home Buyers Really Want," NAHB Eye On Housing, March 20, 2024; Paul Emrath, "Home Sizes: Demand versus Supply," NAHB Eye On Housing, August 7, 2024; NAHB press release, February 26, 2025
- National Association of Realtors, 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (size of home bought, first-time buyers' share, age, down payment and income)
- AEI Housing Center, Pinto and Tracy, November 25, 2025, on the age of first-time buyers (New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel count)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey, Historical Table 19 (homeownership rate, householders under 35)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Tables HH-4 and MS-2 (household size and age at first marriage)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Table H-6, real median household income
- Stuart Rosenthal, "Are Private Markets and Filtering a Viable Source of Low-Income Housing?", American Economic Review 104(2), 2014
- Liu, McManus and Yannopoulos (Freddie Mac), "Geographic and Temporal Variation in Housing Filtering Rates," 2020
- Federal Housing Finance Agency, National Mortgage Database, outstanding mortgage statistics
- Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, The State of the Nation's Housing 2026
Since 2022, and where things stand
- D.R. Horton, Investor Presentation, Q2 fiscal 2026, slide 9; D.R. Horton, Q3 fiscal 2026 earnings call transcript, July 21, 2026
- U.S. Census Bureau, quarterly starts and completions by purpose and design; Robert Dietz, "Small Decline for Single-Family Home Size," NAHB Eye On Housing, August 2026
- U.S. Census Bureau and HUD, Monthly New Residential Sales, July 2026; National Association of Realtors, Existing-Home Sales, August 2026
- Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 30-year fixed rate: the weekly survey of September 17, 2026, and annual averages via FRED series MORTGAGE30US
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Home Ownership Affordability Monitor
- Public Law 119-101, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, July 11, 2026
- NAHB Eye On Housing, "Second Quarter Declines for Single-Family Built-to-Rent," August 2026 (reading Census starts data); American Homes 4 Rent and Invitation Homes, Form 10-K, fiscal 2025
- California Department of Housing and Community Development, ADU Handbook, March 2026
Map data
- Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database Licence
- Natural Earth, public domain
Credits
- Archival film"According to Plan: The Story of Modern Sidewalls for the Homes of America" (1952), "The Quiet Revolution" (1956), "Community Development with Gunnison Homes" (1950), "In the Suburbs" (1957) and "Vista Stock Shots: Houses, San Francisco" (1960), Prelinger Archives, public domain.
- Archival photographsAerial views of Levittown, New York (1947, 1951, 1953, 1954), a Federal Art Project better-housing poster (1936) and a National Photo Company house-for-sale photograph (1921), Library of Congress, public domain.
- Documents shown on screenTime (1950); FHA Technical Bulletin No. 4 (1937, 1940); Grebler, NBER (1953); Fannie Mae Selling Guide; City of Raleigh Development Fee Guide; Terner Center (2018); Lennar and D.R. Horton filings and presentation; Spalding County zoning code; City of Houston Chapter 42; Texas S.B. 15. Shown briefly as evidence, each cited on screen.
- Aerial imageryGoogle Earth, imagery Vexcel Imaging US, Inc.; Landsat / Copernicus; Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO: Levittown, New York, and Houston, Texas.
- Stock footageStoryblocks, under license: subdivision, construction, townhouse, neighborhood and building-permit footage.
- MusicYouTube Audio Library: "Watercolor Lilies," Aaron Kenny; "The Palace Gardens," "Traverse The Sky," "Exploring The Crystal Caves" and "Love's Aftermath," Asher Fulero; "Twinkle," The Grey Room / Density & Time; "Autumn Wind," Dyalla; "Calmity," Yung Logos.
- SoundTypewriter (Erika 5) and running film projector recordings by Work With Sounds (Konrad Gutkowski; La Fonderie), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Page turn, Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Title and end-card stings, tuesdaynight; tick, soundshelfstudio; paper slide, oxidvideos; whoosh, dragonstudio (Pixabay). Chalk, marker and stamp sounds, Freesound (86723, 68086, 6789, 44189). Pencil sounds, YouTube Audio Library.