We are building 1950s suburban homes on steroids in a post-baby-boom world where average household size has shrunk.
There are a lot of problems with this.
What is legal is what gets built. Not enough is legal, and not enough is built as a result.
I know many people who have built many homes and I don't know a single one who thought that way or built a house that reflects it.
While impacted by practical needs to a degree, preferred home size is just a fashion that changes over time and amounts to personal taste.
The 3500sf McMansion of yesterday becomes the "who would want to maintain and heat all that?!" of tomorrow, the cramped matchbox of yesterday becomes the Eco Friendly Tiny Home of tomorrow, etc
People build for the intersection of they want to budget and either: what they want to live in, or what their near-term anticipated buyer is assumed to want in light of current trends.
(And probably it is mostly about making legal and construction matters easier? No party wall; if you want to tear it down and put a new one up you can do so without disturbing the neighbours' property, etc.)
Besides cost savings, you can fit more in if you don’t have those foot paths between, but the market isn’t into it.
Noise is an issue. In particular the one I really wanted to buy overlooking the Ballard locks, we suspected that the unit next to us was a party airBnB.
Most homes are built by cookie-cutter block developments, and they make the most money by:
1. Minimizing the size of their lots.
2. Maximizing the size of the homes on the lots.
They subdivide as much as they are allowed to, and build as big as they are allowed to. If the houses in your city are too big, it's because the smallest allowed lot size is.
If we ever caught up with the housing shortage, and there was a glut of housing on the market, maybe developers would start to build smaller, but we aren't there, and we won't be there for the next ~30 years.
The size of the home is not a structural rule of the building industry, and is not universal or permanent. Just like any business, it's something builders decide based on who their market is and what they think they'll buy.
The described strategy might be what you're seeing in your area and might be the only thing that makes sense to your own tastes, but there are plenty of cities and counties where the pressing demand from buyers is for other things. In trend-leading communities, demand has been growing for years for denser housing with immediate access to retail and commerce; for efficient homes with low utility costs or green considerations; for small houses, condos, and townhouses that are well-appointed but accessibly priced and low-maintenance, etc and this is what builders have been building when they've been able to get cleared to build at all.
These ones from this builder vary from 80-320 square metres (~10 square feet per square meter): https://www.heinzvonheiden.de/hausfinder
It would be hilarious if the famously choice-filled capitalist USA has a building industry limited to Cold War DDR "commie block" identikit construction.
In addition, it is relatively rare in the US for an individual owner to commission a custom house to be built. Particularly in the more populated areas, it is more overhead to build one house vs several houses, so people buying new houses are typically buying a new house in a development with mostly cosmetic differences as their only choices.
Something in that paragraph doesn't add up. 500 sqft/$500k property is $1k/sqft, a 750 sqft property needs to be valued at at least $750k to be the same price per unit area; bigger is not sufficient for more per unit area — my expectation would be that cost is sublinear with area for most residential units due to various fixed costs such as (an assumption on my part) utility connection fees and architecture fees.
Mid scale development, entire districts at a time, I'd expect that to be linear with regard to area (so the derivative, cost per square foot, is constant); Very large scale, an entire city at once, that I'd expect the derivative of cost with respect to area to increase as size increases, due to the expectation that infrastructure becomes a dominant cost.
Increasing a home’s price reduces the number of potential buyers.
The reason to build a more expensive home is to be able to sell for a higher price. But if the population of buyers in a location cannot afford to pay more, then a builder would be stupid to build the most expensive home they can, because insufficient people will be able to afford it. Hence smaller (cheaper) homes get built in some places, and bigger homes in other places.
Lots should be narrower. You could get more houses on a block, and they'd could all still have a usable front and back yard. In fact I'd allow them to be built closer to the street, because nobody really uses their front yard either. A nice backyard is something most people would use and enjoy.
It’s about 10 feet from the sidewalk at its closest point. It’s about 8 feet from each of the property’s sides.
The back yard is very nice (about 6k sf, with nice outdoor living spaces, room for kids and dogs to run around, and good views).
This seems fairly common for newer construction in the Seattle suburbs.
I could even support tax benefits for maintaining green space in the public view. The alternative (I saw this the UK) is that people turn their front garden into parking or expand their building towards the street.
At the end of the day, too, we have a housing crisis, not a front-yard crisis.
We can recognize the need to not recreate Kowloon in the context of a housing shortage.
It's been a linear and monotonic increase for over 100 years
Surely they have crazy European rules instead? The EU isn't exactly known for a lack of rules.
That's a problem in this part of the world. People would rather sit at a comfy desk writing software than expose themselves to a harsh construction environment. The small few willing to do it are booked up years in advance. They can't possibly build any more than they already are.
You might say higher pay would attract more people, but guess what higher pay brings?
1. Price varies based on desirability of a location.
2. Desirability varies based on many factors, including proximity to a city center or major business concerns, cost of living, crime rate, etc.
3. To optimize desirability until there is more desirable space than those who desire it would require optimizing the variables that contribute to desirability.
4. The potential result is desirable, ie proximity to jobs or cultural center, low crime, low cost of living, etc. A number of variables contribute to each of these, and those would require optimization as well.
4a. There will be a point of diminishing returns, where builders will exit a market when there are not enough buyers at high enough prices to make a profit. As soon as there is a hint of profit, the vultures will appear.
5. In order to prevent real estate speculation, we could impose a few laws: first, make lending at a profit illegal for all non productive enterprises; second, levy a land value tax that hurts enough that it makes owning non productive commercial property untenable to own; third, allow only individuals to own residential real estate, ie, eliminate the rental market entirely and levy use taxes for vacant homes (your real estate must be your home of record and must be your residence for some minimum percentage of time every year).
This would destroy the real estate market entirely, and I don't think that would be a bad thing.
It's a preferences and distribution problem. There are plenty of places with vacancies or where it is legal and practical to build. The problem is people don't want to live there or it has too few jobs. If the market works the way it should, then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibrium. The problem is many of the companies that had easy money and extreme growth concentrated it one region and skewed the market. Most of the US does not have a housing issue as nationally housing units exceed "households". We could accommodate everyone, but it's largely a distribution and preferences issue.
https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/are-there-more-homes-people...
The problem is that households require two wage earners. Consequently, it is very difficult for a family to move since both earners have to find better jobs simultaneously.
One of the reasons to stay in the overpriced areas is that when one person loses a job, they can get another job without uprooting the whole family.
If cost of living is significantly lower, they don't have to be better.
My whole comment was about job distribution. What are we doing to address it? Do the mega corp leaders not see the social and business value in opening offices in smaller cities?
Most differentials are much smaller. "Cheap" places are no longer very much cheaper.
Cost of living changes are no longer extreme enough to offset the loss of a wage earner.
> Do the mega corp leaders not see the social and business value in opening offices in smaller cities?
Um, no?
The difference between opening an office in San Jose and one in Pittsburgh is quite large, for example. Your connectivity due to air travel is much worse. Your personal networking is much worse. etc.
It was the former CTO of Modcloth who talked about how having the programmers in Pittsburgh was great but that they needed to park the executives in the Bay Area.
It's still an international airport, even if the schedule isn't as robust. The emphasis on in-person personal networking, and personal networking in general, is atrocious. Personal networking and the requirement to so it in person is a huge factor in many biases and discrimination. It's only going to get worse as the group-think and physical concentration increases while the job market gets worse.
Also, 25% is a big difference. I think we have to compare the commutable areas as well. Some places like NYC and SF do not have much cheaper areas in a reasonable commute. Other areas can have much cheaper areas in a reasonable commute. Many costs are largely the same due to the national brands - cars, electronics, appliances, etc. But things like housing can be massively different. An apartment in a commutable suburb can be close to 50% of what it is downtown in many cities. It's no secret that the salaries and property costs are extremely above average in the bay area.
Then there are areas where many people have a reason to live in. Imagine a highly educated couple. At least one of them probably works in a field where fully remote work is not possible. When they choose where they want to live, they likely prioritize areas with many potential employers within an easy commute. If they take the risk and move to a small city with only 1-2 relevant employers and it doesn't work out, they're in trouble. And because educated people move to larger cities, businesses that need talent also concentrate there.
Homes as such are not worth much. Almost all of the value is in the location. And most locations are not worth much.
In the US though I see a lot of attitude for "ugh who wants to live in a building with people, I want huge lawns where I don't have to see my neighbors on the end of a cul-de-sac with no traffic. I want to live in a town thats as far from 'walkable' as possible." So many people I come across especially when talking about how housing has a supply-side problem and needs to build more with better density and access to transit.
If you want to fight the market, you need centralization. You tax everyone and use the collected money to subsidize a limited number of cities with unrealized potential. Selecting the winners is essential. The more evenly you spread the money, the less effect it will have.
I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing concentration and not social equity focused distribution.
"You tax everyone and use the collected money to subsidize a limited number of cities with unrealized potential."
There are already cities with untapped opportunities. In my opinion the reason rhey remain untapped is because leaders don't care. They'd rather follow group-think.
The market can’t make a culturally inhospitable place welcoming.
You do understand that works both ways? If you reverse the areas you're thinking of, there are people who prefer the rights or social environment in the opposite direction. Shouldn't we be trying to bring similar opportunities to all social groups? If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations.
Originally I'd replied about population demographics and migration; @giantg2 has a good reply to that, which you can see below. In reviewing the conversation, I got mentally stuck on the comparisions to reservations, because I think it's a severely fucked up comparison. But saying that alone isn't a helpful or effective conversation, so -
> Shouldn't we be trying to bring similar opportunities to all social groups? If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations.
In terms of "should we be trying to bring..." - yeah, more or less, yeah, we should. The issue, for me, comes first from trying to say that the social group that is a reservation is the same kind of social group that is a disappearing small town; second, that "bring[ing] similar opportunities" to both would look similar (ye olde equality/equity conversation), and lastly that a meaningful comparison of outcomes can be made between the polities, due to, you know, all the ethnic cleansing (Trail of Tears, etc). But, that's a a hard conversation to have, or to continue, and it's based off of me making a lot of assumptions about what comparison actually is trying to be made.
So, to be constructive about it:
> If we want to look at how this turns out, take a look at Native American reservations.
Can you walk me through this? What are you seeing as the outcome, and why do you think these polities are comparable?
- Both groups had pressures, albeit to very different degrees and methods, to remove rights and land. We see that rural populations are losing farm land due to the way the market treats commodity crops and the way the government subsidizes - get big or get out. Many people in rural communities feel ignored and even mistreated by their governments on a variety of issues, including things like eminent domain, property rights, due process, and constitutional rights, especially the 10th and 2nd amendments. As urbanization increases the rural areas just have things pushed down their throats. While reservations have a lot of autonomy, they miss out out on a lot of programs and incentives due to having almost no representation at various levels of government.
- The general attitude towards each is that they are dumb, superstitious/religious, and they should stay in their backwater areas if they don't want to get in line with progressive agendas. That it's their own fault they're choosing to be poor by not moving to the cities, or they don't deserve the same sort of opportunities in their area.
- There has been animosity towards both groups. We've had presidents make fun of both groups. While the Native Americans were targeted with more active methods of elimination, there are passive methods of eliminating people - most of it unintentional. If you eliminate enough opportunities the people have to move, as we've seen with the increasing urbanization. It can be hard to believe that things like free trade (elimination of many factories) and elimination of fossil fuel industries without any geographic replacements aren't politically strategic.
So like, I’d buy that it’s worth taking about both, due to their similarities, but I wouldn’t buy that any conclusions could be made on those alone.
PS - I also want to say, I really appreciate your response; you’ve spoken with a measured an informative tone/etc, and that’s worth celebrating.
"That’s (part of) why the places that are emptying are emptying, and then they’re surprised when only trying to be attractive to businesses doesn’t work out."
I'm not sure I understand you. Places like TX, FL, AZ, etc are actually growing populations while being hailed as business friendly. Yet places like CA and NY are losing population while considered being tought for business and progressive (rights, social atmosphere fron your prior comment?).
thats if infrastructure(roads, airports, hospitals, grid, etc) will appear there
My grandparents had a bona fide two family house, two stories with the common "balloon" construction from the (earlier) period. Looking at how its use changed through the years, it allowed for great flexibility. Lots of bedrooms for kids, somewhat private space as they got into their teenage+ years. Then after most moved out and settled down on their own, one stayed in the upstairs apartment with their husband and own kid, and helped out grandma while grandma helped watch the next generation. Then when grandma passed, the house passed to a different brother, who lived in one apartment and rented out the second.
Now modern humongous homes are trying to recreate some of that flexibility, but not doing a great job at it. They're still focused on a singular living space where everyone has to interact with each other. This is often due to zoning regulations directly aimed at preventing people from creating full second living spaces that would be possible to rent on the open market - when it's exactly that independence that allows scaling how much house you're actually using.
I'd argue we are simply purchasing larger homes because that's what people want?
and 4.5 people .. meaning parents and 3 kids, well, yeah, that's not super big, but everyone can have their own room (let's say 10+ m² so that's half of the house, and you still have around 50 m² for a living/dining room with kitchen, bathrooms, etc.)
it sounds lovely to my European ears :)
Is that bad? Depends on your viewpoint. As far as I can tell, people are buying what they like so the customer is happy.
There are side effects we don't like, but I can see attempting to solve that could have its side effects.
Eventually, the market works this out. We got sick of sprawl some people moved back to the cities.
Houses are too big? Some people live in much smaller homes closer to the city or even tiny homes.
The house in 1950 had a unfinished basement and was listed at 1200 sq ft. They finished the basement and later sold it as 2400. The difference is a couple pallets of drywall.
These also don’t exist in the south since there’s no need to get below a frost line.
If the frost line is lower, then a basement is very little extra cost since you are digging deeper and laying more concrete anyway.
If you are building on a hill, then making a 3 story house is also very little extra cost.
Anecdotally, finished basements are practically required if there is any sort of hill, which fairly common in the west, whereas they're likely to be absent for houses built on the floodplain.
Your example of two teenagers is only relevant for 6 years of a family's lifetime. Why should we optimise for those 6 years?
And we don't need to be "optimizing" like you're talking about. "Well it's only 6 years of our life, not a big deal for everyone to suffer that long!" Good lord. Just build the houses people want. And clearly some of them want the SQFT - we can meet that demand.
My spouse and I also went for the kids when we were financially stable, and now we live in a 1500 sqft home, and I don't see why would we need a bigger one. We both work from home, the kids have their own rooms, we even have a tiny guest room.
What would I do with a 2400 sqft one? Cleaning and maintaining thus one is already a lot of work.
In a situation where there is a housing crisis all over the West, building bigger houses, except for a niche market that does exist, just doesn't make sense.
Around here, I think there is definitely a market for bigger houses, because any house with 3K+ sqft sells for a butt ton and people are tripping over each other to fight for them. The new suburbs that are being built are getting a ton of demand and their prices have spiked in the past few years at a far greater rate than surrounding housing.
The demand for SFHs will always exist - some people are willing to pay extra not to hear or smell their neighbors through the walls. We can meet that demand with new builds, and once pressure is relieved from current suburban areas, you can go back and start to incrementally redevelop those areas more efficiently as well.
There's a worthwhile discussion to be had on this point alone. I believe condos are so small and bad because of a confluence of two factors: (1) a lack of regulations around quality, (2) too many regulations around zoning, making vertical space scarce instead of abundant.
Factor (1) leads to a lack of privacy and noise because the builder wants to save on materials costs. Factor (2) leads to condos being too small because vertical "land" is so expensive when it should be cheap if restrictions didn't exist.
It should not be possible to hear your neighbors through the walls, if we use multiple layers of air gapped steel or concrete. Condos that achieve this exist. They're just not common because regulations don't enforce it.