A brief spike in housing satisfaction from moving into “larger accommodations” produces no durable effects on overall life satisfaction. This even compensates for smaller homes. In Latin America, people are far happier than per capita gross domestic product alone would predict, most likely because of positive interactions among larger households (despite smaller homes). But the optimal number of square feet in your life may be smaller than you think - potentially much smaller. This difference helps explain why Europeans report higher well-being than their American counterparts, despite having smaller homes and smaller households.

Source: Washington Post January 06, 2026 19:42 UTC