[patton]

You neglect to mention that homes in Alaska are diliberately small, because of the extreme heating costs.

[ASOC]

Not so much of late. Pre-1975 homes in Anchorage look like doll houses - being 600 to 800 sq ft over a basement. Newer homes look - to me anyway - to be over-sized “Tuff Sheds” made with 2x4 and T1011 cedar siding for the most part. Many are far larger than 2000+ sq ft and too many not all that energy efficient. Cheap natural gas will do that.

The newest of homes tout 4 or 5 star energy ratings - now that gas rates have shot up 45% in two years.

We were lucky to buy our home, a 1000 sq ft over a basement - made in 1978 - at a good price. We swapped out the old furnace and saved 42% on gas usage, swapped much of our lighting and limited our electric dryer use and cut our power bills by 30%. Window & insulation upgrades and so on have paid themselves pack in less than 5 years.

Now, if I could just do something about the local property taxes.......

So our home was just under $50/sq ft and we have added about $6/sq ft in energy improvements over the last 15 years. I could not replace our home for less than 300K in the current market. Crazy heh?