That's quite broad definition of middle-class. I could understand the middle-class buyers, not so much the dwellers.
Perhaps, disintegration of middle-class is a root cause for people considering such living standards as 'convenient'. Effectively,you live in a tight dorm.
so, uh, I didn't go to school, so maybe I'm missing something, but I thought that dorms were usually shared bedrooms or something; personally, I think there's a huge difference between having a small private space and having no private space, and most of the problem with living in a dorm is having no private space.
That's where this sort of thing comes in. A lot of the single people I know in silicon valley, even a lot of the high earners, rent rooms in houses; houses that are designed for families. The thing is, if you are an introvert, you'd be better off with something built in a more hotel-like way, with more private area per common area, and with more bathrooms. (oh my, with more bathrooms.)
If you are building for me, you have a water closet with toilet and shower, and then a sink, but no real kitchen. I eat out or at work anyhow; a desktop convection oven is overkill for my kitchen needs.
I mean, I think at this point we're around/above the size of the bedroom most people rent around here? I mean, at that size, I want a murphy bed, but even without, this is a size a lot of people live with right now.
Sure, I'd prefer some place bigger... but if you sell me 10m^2 in the bay area, say, for a quarter million dollars? I'd vastly prefer that to the really big place that a quarter million gets me in the midwest.
Preferences vary.
I thought that dorms were usually
shared bedrooms or something;
Here in the UK, rooms in 'halls of residence' are almost always single occupancy. There's access to a shared kitchen, and toilets may be shared or en suite depending on price.
There has been some middle class disintegration too, but it is much slower and smaller.
Either there's a high degree of consolidation on the real estate market, such that the properties are in hands of large conglomerates (maybe foreign). Or the middle class effectively has low buying power, which again asks to reconsider its middle definition.
Clearly there's some serious disbalance at play. Small square footage offerings are not a solution, rather it's another way to further increase a unit-price.
Most "middle class" owners bought in before prices came up; real-estate, like everything, is priced at the margin
The very small amount that sells is usually brought by rich people making unsound decisions (like betting they'll never have a month without a job on the next 30 years). People have been moving away from those centers and leaving housing there empty.
An apartment, smaller than the hotel room (typical 4x6m) is not a proper living place, whether it's meant for single guy or a small family. I like the approach in one country, where all the apartments must fit certain size, e.g. 80sqm for a family with 2 kids. Even, for low-income income families, they still have to get at least 50sqm, government will subsidize.
Why?
I would choose to move to smaller than 4x6m apartment, even though I can easily afford much larger size. Why? simply because I don't need the extra space. If I can save couple hundred bucks a month then I'm all for it.
The problem is those apartments is not available in my area, no one is building it. To me its the fault of the incompetence government and its regulation.