Small houses are a perfect fit for many homeowners
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

Frustrated with the size of your home? You're not alone.

But instead of feeling cramped, a growing number of Americans are finding they have more home than they want or need.

The reasons are numerous. Baby boomers, 77 million strong, are looking to downsize in retirement. Young home buyers are finding it increasingly difficult to afford or maintain larger homes. Urban land is at a premium. Smaller homes in desirable neighborhoods are scarce or outlawed by covenant. And environmental concerns about a residence's "carbon footprint" have further dampened enthusiasm for spacious showpieces.

That doesn't necessarily mean that smaller times are ahead for everyone. For growing families, some investors, the wealthy or homeowners who just want the room, bigger will most likely continue to be better.

But for homeowners who no longer wish to pay taxes, utilities and insurance on rooms they never use, or who simply find a smaller home more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing, the small-house movement is quietly reinventing the U.S. scale of living.

Less is more for owners of small homes
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My shed, my home
In some cases, the small-house trend goes to the extreme Lilliputian end of the scale.

Jay Shafer lives quite comfortably in a 100-square-foot house in Sebastopol, Calif. You may have a tool shed or a master bath about the same size.

Shafer's home is on the small end of a line of compact, ready-made dwellings he designs for his Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. His designs have won numerous awards for energy efficiency and green building. The homes cost between $20,000 and $48,000, excluding land.

Though many customers use them as vacation homes or mother-in-law cottages, there are those smaller-is-better devotees who, like Shafer, simply prefer to live within their means.

Shafer, founder of the Small House Society, says "supersizing" came about when home builders hooked consumers on the one easily quantifiable aspect of every house: its square footage.