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Most of the world builds low-end homes from reinforced concrete. Most US buyers don't like that.

(I live in a house built from cinder blocks filled with concrete and rebar, like a commercial building. It was built by a commercial builder as his own house. It looks industrial from the outside, and nice inside. I'm fine with that, but most people are not.)

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Most of the world doesnt have access to good/cheap canadian lumber and we do. It would make sfhs and even small multihome projects more expensive not less if you start building them from concrete and steel. Also at the risk of stating the obvious - frame is on the order of 10-20% of the total construction cost so wouldn’t really make much of difference anyway

I was noticing on my last trip to Europe that telephone/power poles were made of concrete, not wood. This was near Budapest.

Same reason - US had a lot of timber and Europe generally didn't by the time industrial revolution came. In addition, a lot of eastern europe had to be totally rebuilt from scratch after ww2 and especially soviets were never really good with money (duh) and did a lot of the things for the show.

The underlying problem, I think, is that homes are used as displays of wealth. Veblen goods.

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