The New Normal:

Students Build $500 House
The New Normal: More space, more rooms and more features are “standard” in new houses over time. The average American family size has been decreasing over the last 50 years, but the average American home size has been increasing. In 1973, the largest housing problem in the U.S. was overcrowding. Now, only a few generations later, many people can’t afford an average home Two students at an Iowa college have built their own home. Not unusual, you say? They built it themselves -- and it cost them less than $500 for everything. At that point they retooled and decided to scavenge materials to see how inexpensively they could build their home, read more.