Single Story Homes Vs. Two Story

When you're searching for a home, one of the first things you'll decide is how big a home should be for you. In Hawaii homes are smaller than on the mainland overall. You might be coming from Texas where a $300k home has over 6000sqft. On Oahu that same money will buy you a 2 bedroom condo of about 900sqft. Hey, it's Hawaii.

One way to get more home for your money is to look at single story homes. A two story home has around 15-20 steps, each of which take up square footage. There is usually also a landing area and some hallway that is not really usable space.

Yesterday I was looking at homes in Ewa Beach around 1200-1400sqft, and we found that the 1200ft single level homes felt larger, and had more usuable space in the living room and bedrooms.

We saw a little 1069sqft house that seemed bigger than all the 1300ft two story homes we looked at. It had a larger living room and kitchen, and even the master bedroom was quite a bit larger.


So if you are thinking about how many square feet your home should be, remember it's a different number if the home is a single story home. And the funny thing is, you might pay more for two story homes even though they are cheaper to build. Single story homes by their nature take up more land on a lot, which is why two story homes can be more preferable if you're trying to save lot space.