Housing Slump Puts
New Homes on a Diet

Here's a look at what's new in real-estate markets across the U.S. from around the Web. (Some links may require registration or subscriptions.)

Builders Go Back to Basics

In Tampa, where the average home size ballooned from 1,400 square feet 35 years ago to approximately 2,400 square feet in 2006, houses are getting smaller, according to James Thorner of the St. Petersburg Times. Faced with hesitant buyers and a tighter credit market, builders like KB Home are scaling down to produce residences that buyers can afford.

KB Home, whose average home size was 2,200 square feet in Tampa in 2006, is now down to 1,800, the Times says. Now the home builder is offering two-bedroom houses of 1,033 square feet that are no larger than apartments and start at just over $130,000, according to Mr. Thorner.

"It's really helped us get to a price point people can afford," says a KB spokeswoman quoted in the article.

Also on the way out are fancy home amenities like three-car garages, double-entry doors and extra-high ceilings and community extras like golf courses and community pools. By paring down these extras, builders like KB Home and Ryland Homes can offer houses for lower dollar amounts, the newspaper says.

Prepping foreclosed homes for sale

As the number of foreclosures increase across the U.S., some lenders are turning to companies that rehabilitate abandoned and vacant foreclosed homes, writes Jonathan D. Epstein of the Buffalo News. Such companies clean the houses and "repair any critical damage and get the house ready for a new owner," so hopefully, the bank-owned property can be sold, says the Buffalo, N.Y., paper.

Mr. Epstein notes that the goal is to quickly put homes back on the market and that this type of company has expanded its services beyond basic repairs, now offering to "refresh" properties by providing maid service and cleaning services. However, he does report that in some cases, such companies don't necessarily fix everything that needs repairing -- only the fixes that "would deter a sale" are performed.

What motivates 'serial buyers'

In a recent Newsday story, writer Dan Van Benthuysen takes a look at "a very unusual kind of person" -- homeowners who like to move and are constantly on the lookout for a new home. While some people may dread the prospect of putting one's residence on the market and packing up one's things, others relish the prospect -- savoring  the search through the real-estate listings and all the open houses, the reporter notes.

This type of behavior has been encouraged by tax laws that allow individuals to keep up to $250,000 tax-free on the sale of a home (or $500,000 for a couple) when certain conditions are met, the article says.

The article highlights the experiences of several "serial buyers," including one mom who has lived in six different houses with her family and on two occasions sent her children off to summer camp, only to move into a different house before they returned. One couple spotlighted by the article has owned seven different homes -- all within the same New York suburb.

Ms. Kim is a senior editor at RealEstateJournal.com.

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