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Is Multifamily Housing More Efficient than Single Family Housing?

June 14, 2016

Last month I attended the Better Buildings Summit in Washington, DC.  POAH joined the Better Buildings Challenge (BBC) in 2013 and we’re making solid progress towards our goal of reducing portfolio-wide energy use by 20%.  The Summit, an annual gathering of BBC participants, provides an opportunity to learn how other organizations approach energy and water conservation.  A number of multifamily housing organizations presented their insights.  As someone who spends most of their time thinking about energy in multifamily buildings I also find it worthwhile to check out the Commercial and Industrial tracks to see how those outside the multifamily world think about conservation (and which of their ideas I can “borrow” for my own work).

I was reminded of the Summit as I reviewed the US Census Bureau’s "Characteristics of New Housing” survey. The survey offers a ton of info on new single and multifamily housing.  I’m interested in the respective size of new homes because size directly correlates with energy use: the bigger the home, the more energy it uses.  Newer homes may be more energy efficient per square foot, but, the new data tells us, they are also getting bigger.  From 1995 to 2015, the median square footage of a new single family home in the US increased from 1,870 to 2,540 square feet, a 36% increase.  In 1999, the median multifamily unit size was 1,041 square feet.  In 2015 it was 1,074, a 3% increase.

I don’t know why single family homes continue to get bigger while multifamily homes stay the same size.  There are plenty of theories but I’m inclined towards following consumer demand: single family homes get bigger because that is what people want (and are willing to pay for).  Regardless of the underlying reasons, the census data reinforces the value of the conservation in multifamily buildings encouraged by the BBC.  Efficiency gains in the single family sector get watered down by the persistent growth in home size.  Not so in multifamily. 

This brings me to the most daunting stat from the census data.  In 2015, 648,000 single family homes were completed.  Only 320,000 multifamily units came online during that year.  The more multifamily housing we build, the less energy intensive our housing stock will be.  Our work toward the BBC goals helps advance conservation, but we must also think about how we encourage more people to choose multifamily housing.