At appears that the McMansion lifestyle choice is coming to an end. After years of consumers buying homes featuring sprawling layouts and square footage exceeding the 3,200 mark, the current trend in homeownership is tilting towards downsizing.

For decades, Americans chose to live in smaller and more efficient homes. According to Trulia's (real estate search engine) recent American Dream Survey, in the 1950s the average American home was approximately 983 square feet. However as the nouveau riche improved their credit ratings, the average home size more than doubled in size to a spacious minimum 2,349 square feet. Ninety-one of the survey participants agreed that now, their ideal home would be between 800-3200 square feet.

Resentment towards McMansion

Until recently, credit flowed like water and consumers were buying the latest toys thanks to the trend. Hummers, 150" flat screen TVs, and sprawling properties became the norm. While the conspicuous consumption was welcomed by economists and financial experts, as 70 percent of the American economy is composed of consumer spending, many considered the homes themselves were considered to be in bad taste and unattractive.

Once the real estate bubble burst and Mr. Monopoly and his friends all started to bail on the properties, the feeling towards the McMansion blight started to swell. According to a professor and the director of the Metropolitan Institute (Virginia Tech) negative reactions towards ostentation displays of wealth have occurred since the Gilded Age.

Even while the McMansion trend was in its heyday, communities fought hard against this home variety. According to MSN, local governments ranging from Atlanta to Austin have started to aggressively regulate size-building limits. Some of them had even put a brief stop to new construction while they figured out how to manage the mega mansion trend.

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, real-estate agents, sellers, developers and housing economists have all predicted the stagnation within the mega-mansion home trend. The paper reports "In an affluent Dallas ZIP Code, where half the houses have four bedrooms or more, home sales fell 31% in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter. But sales rose 23% in a nearby ZIP Code where 7% of houses have that many bedrooms."

What is to Become of McMansions?

Over development, the mortgage meltdown and the backlash against consumerism has helped the national real estate market to become over saturated with over-sized homes. As more homeowners intentionally choose to downsize or have already lost their monstrous homes to default, prices on McMansions have dropped substantially.

While the prices on mega-mansions are still high and require a jumbo loan to finance, there are hundreds of properties listed at hundreds of thousands of dollars off of their original listing price. Even with those bargains there have been few takers for the homes. That is why some creative strategies may be in order:

• Re-Zoning: While most the homes are too big for single families, the properties would make excellent accommodations for businesses. One such success story comes from Seattle Washington. According to CNBC, a local film collective bought a local 10,000 mega-mansion and converted the property into a living work space complete with editing room, green screen and full studio functionality.
• Retrofitting to Become Green: The heating and electricity expenses associated with mega mansions are high, that is why some local governments are offering incentives to make the properties more energy efficient. Nationally, building restrictions for properties exceeding 3,000 square feet putting efficiency at the forefront of construction or renovation approvals.

Current Home Construction Trends

No matter if you call them Hummer Homes, McMansions, mega-mansions or just too big, sprawling mansions are not in the future of new construction. In direct correlation with the downsizing of the nation, architectural plans for the future are a bit more conservative.

Whether you want to score a deal on a mega mansion or a more manageable 2,000 square foot property, buyers can score major deals throughout the nation. Most home sellers have slashed their home prices to compete with surplus inventory. Financing a discounted home purchase with historically low mortgage rates can help qualifying consumers save thousands of dollars, and Mortgage Marvel is the place to start your mortgage quest.