The average house size in the Washington, DC, area, is about 1,400 square feet larger than it would have been if the US government didn’t provide tax benefits such as the mortgage-interest deduction to promote home ownership, according to a study described by The Wall Street Journal. While driving up the size of houses in affluent areas, the tax breaks have done little to broadly encourage people to buy homes. The benefits cost the government $175 billion annually in lost revenue, the Journal says.

(Source: The Wall Street Journal)