They don’t build houses like they used to — and that’s not a bad thing. Houses are being built on smaller lots, which means less maintenance for the owners.

In Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, changing demographics are forcing a dramatic shift in the way local homes are designed. Area homebuyers are asking: Why pay for more lawn to cut?

“People just aren’t as drawn to larger lots,” says Mary Ann Meagher, a residential real estate agent with Fonville Morisey in Cary. “They know that’s a lot of maintenance and upkeep.”

But this concern isn’t merely an aversion to yard work, Meagher and her colleague Meredith Kisner explain on the drive to a client meeting. It’s indicative of the change in consumers’ lifestyle choices.

“Kids’ activities have changed,” Meagher says. “They’re a lot more structured: Instead of playing in the backyard, kids are often going to swim practice or soccer practice away from the home.”

The majority of today’s homebuyers — by a 70-30 split, according to Kisner and Meagher — are increasingly on the go and decreasingly interested in tolerating the headaches of hedge trimming.

People of all ages are looking to travel more, the pair say, and that means coming and going without the trouble of caring for a large property.

“Now, it’s about ease of use in these homes,” Meagher says. “Our population, in general, is aging.”

Cary — one of Raleigh’s several satellite boomtowns which saw its population explode from 7,600 people in 1970 to 21,700 in 1980 — is adapting to the aging of the many thousands that arrived in the 1970s and ’80s.

“We’re hearing more about people wanting to age in place,” said Meagher. “And we’re seeing a move towards more first-floor master bedrooms.”

And not every baby boomer is looking for a house. Many are choosing to live in retirement and assisted-living communities near family, such as Cary’s Glenaire Retirement Community, for which the waiting list is full. A New York Times report showed that an estimated 15 million baby boomers across the United States are seeking such facilities, of which there are 700,000 current residents.

The best spot for these retirement communities to locate, say analysts with PGIM Real Estate’s retirement group, is along the path of family members’ commutes.

Homebuyers themselves haven’t forgotten about location: For those with modern tastes and a desire to be near downtown, remodeling a smaller home in an established neighborhood is often the answer.

“Even people with larger families are more willing to have a smaller footprint of a house if they can be closer to things,” says Kisner. “The biggest change you see is square footage. Everyone wanted bigger; bigger was better. Now? Buyers are more minimal.”

Buying isn’t all that these people have in mind, either. Building equity in a property and then selling the property after the land value has appreciated is often an argument in the buy versus rent debate.

And Meagher explains that for many people in the Triangle who bought large houses in prior decades, the value appreciation hasn’t been as strong as for those who bought smaller houses.

“For larger, more expensive houses,” she says, “there aren’t as many buyers in the market at that price point. As Cary’s population ages, more of those houses are going on the market. And that goes back to those younger families — who are less interested in really big houses. So, there’s an oversupply of those bigger, more expensive houses. And that affects the pricing.”

The result is that Triangle homes in the $400,000 or less category are selling better than those valued at $500,000 or more. These more expensive homes are also facing competition from newly built neighborhoods with homes finished in a modern aesthetic: Quartz or marble countertops, open-floor plans, and smaller living spaces.

“We’re not seeing not as many dining areas or living rooms in new houses,” says Meagher. “We’re having more living rooms being used as offices because more people are working from home now.”

The area’s worker profile is changing, too: Findings by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research concluded that more women are working in the Triangle in professional and managerial jobs than the state’s average. As a result, there are more female homebuyers.

“The biggest change we’ve seen,” says Meagher, “is the percentage of millennial females buying homes—there is a sense of independence. They’re waiting later to marry, and waiting later to have kids. They’re not wanting to wait to have kids to purchase a house.”

Millennials are split evenly on the home-buying decision — in spite of the nearly 19 million millennials who are mortgage-ready, according to The Urban Institute and research by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.

“Half of millennials are waiting on the sidelines,” says Meagher. “When you’re young and on the job, you might be on an assignment for one to two years and then be relocated. There is hesitancy in the permanency of buying a house.”

And some may still want a yard.

John Anthony, 25, is a business development representative living and working in the Triangle. He wasn’t confident about buying a home in the near-future simply because he or his fiancé could be offered a career opportunity in a new area. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought about it.

“If we did buy a home,” he says, “we would want a front and, especially, a backyard. It’s not for us. It’s for our dog.”