Eleven years ago I took a commission sales job selling roofing service following a monster hailstorm. I soon realized that there were huge numbers of “McMansions” around this little town and I mean houses that would make 2400 square feet look a tiny cottage. I made some good “licks” selling roofs on them but I couldn’t imagine who had that kind of money, there are a lot of doctors and others in the medical field here but not that many. One day I got into a conversation with a real estate man and he told me that most of those huge houses belonged to couples who both had good jobs and were putting every penny they could scrape into the mortgage. He said they all bought the most expensive house for which they could qualify and had ZERO discretionary income and in fact would never be able to reroof if the insurance had not paid for the roof.
I did an estimate for one man I had known casually for years and I was astounded to see his house, I would never have considered something so large unless I had enough money to pay cash for it. It looked like a small motel in size. He told me they were planning to trade UP!
I had friends with very large houses... and when you went inside, most rooms had NO furniture... every dime they had went into the house...