The square footage of new U.S. houses continues to march higher.

The median-sized single-family house built in 2014 was 2,453 square feet, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, setting a new record.

House sizes have grown steadily with only a few reversals, which turned out to be brief. New homes shrank in the wake of the housing bubble, but the trend turned out to be short-lived. By 2012, builders were setting new square-footage records.

The median new apartment, meanwhile, has stayed roughly the same size in the 15 years the Census Bureau has been counting. They've trended down in size in recent years — as a trend toward studio and micro-apartments took hold — but grew slightly to 1,073 square feet in 2014. (Condos built for sale were larger, with a median of 1,432 square feet.)

Homebuilders completed about 620,000 single-family houses nationwide in 2014, according to the Census Bureau's Survey of Construction.

— Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com

503-294-5034