One of the nation's largest homebuilders is addressing housing affordability in Texas with a collection of tiny, two-story homes priced from the $150,000s.
Lennar said this week the homes are available at Tillage Farms, a master-planned community in Princeton, Texas, in Collin County, north of Dallas and Plano.
At 661 square feet, the homes include one bedroom, a loft and two bathrooms, according to Lennar. They are priced far below the $403,800 median of new U.S. homes sold in July, according to government data released this week.
The company did not say how many homes are available, and a spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email from Homes.com.
In recent years, record-high home prices and elevated mortgage rates have kept many prospective buyers from committing to purchases, analysts and homebuilders say.
The share of first-time homebuyers between 2023 and 2024 fell to an all-time low of 24%, according to the most recent figures from the National Association of Realtors.
Average US home size falling
Despite the size of the Tillage Farms homes, there will be a market for them, said Justin Benefield, academic director for Auburn University's Winchester Institute for Real Estate Development. "It's not going to be for everybody, but it doesn't have to be," he told Homes.com.
The average size of a U.S. home peaked at nearly 2,700 square feet in the past decade and has been steadily falling ever since, he noted.
"This is something you're seeing in cities where land costs are a huge portion of the overall development costs," Benefield said. "Builders are really getting creative."
Earlier this year, Century Communities announced plans for cottage-like homes in the Florida Panhandle priced under $200,000. Those homes contain a maximum of 1,272 square feet, Century said.
In addition to the small homes, the Tillage Farms development includes three- and four-bedroom properties priced under $300,000s, according to the Lennar website.
"With exceptionally affordable pricing, this new collection brings a unique opportunity in today's market — especially for first-time homebuyers," said Greg Mayberry, Lennar's Dallas-Fort Worth division president.
The Miami-based company sold 80,210 homes last year and generated revenue of $33.78 billion, ranking second to D.R. Horton in both categories, according to Builder magazine.
