Share of Bedrooms in New Homes in 2021

The Census Bureau’s latest Survey of Construction (SOC) shows modest changes in the share of number of bedrooms for new single-family homes in 2021 compared with the previous year. The current estimates indicate the share of new single-family homes with 2 bedrooms or less is 9.2%, 3 bedrooms, the largest share, had a share of 44.5%, 4 bedrooms make up 36.0% of new single-family homes, and 5 bedrooms or more had a share of 10.3% in 2021.

Figure 1 shows the changes in the share of new single-family homes by number of bedrooms dating back to 2011, a ten-year span. For the second straight year, the share of 3 bedroom single-family homes declined while the share of 4 bedroom single-family homes increased. The share of new single-family homes with 5 or more bedrooms was greater than the share of homes with 2 bedrooms or less for the fourth time in the past 10 years, the previous occurrence was in 2017.

As seen in prior years, new single-family homes with less square footage also had fewer bedrooms. New single-family homes between 1,600 – 1,999 square feet had a share of 85.4 % of homes built with 3 bedrooms or less with the remaining 14.6% having 4 bedrooms or more. New homes between 2,000 – 2,399 square feet, 58.6% of them had 3 bedrooms or less while 41.3% had 4 bedrooms or more. This finding is consistent with the trend that homes that are smaller tend to have fewer bedrooms.

Figure 2 below examines the difference between US Census divisions by share of new single-family homes with 4 or more bedrooms. The New England Census division had the lowest share of new-single family homes having 4 or more bedrooms with 30.6%. The highest share of new single-family homes built with 4 or more bedrooms was 52.5% which was in the Middle Atlantic Census division.