I've never understood the need to have such a huge house that requires you to work so many hours to pay for it, that all you basically do is sleep in it.
The big bucks don't buy big houses these days. Our first mortgage for a house and land deal was five years ago for $290000 and that got us an 18 square house (14 square living) on a shoebox block.

It's scary the amount it has hiked in just a few years - we bought our land (less than 1/8 of an acre) at the end of 2005 and paid $120K on the outskirts of Melb and built for $170K. Now the same size house and land is selling off the plan for almost $100K on top of that. Crazy stuff.