Share of Bedrooms in New Homes in 2021

December 30, 2022

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.