The unfortunate thing about "modern prefab" is that it is so dang expensive when the minimalist designs with builds in a controlled environment should be inexpensive.
A house that costs $20k
141–150 of 212 posts
Re: A house that costs $20k
#142It's kind of hard for me to tell whether the house is nicer than mine when there's so little detail in the article on the actual house. Look, i'm more than supportive of innovative design and doing things cheaply, but for an article that was heavy on "the house is so cheap", and "its built kinda more like a airplane", and "it uses all this innovative stuff", there's a startling dearth of information. Sqm, plans, insu…
The numbers are seemingly tossed about without all those pieces you need to add it up. It reads more feel good we got an investment to sell you than actual talk from a home builder. The costs completely ignores the costs of land and ongoing taxes as well. Besides issues with neighbors they are likely going to need to get all new zoning as this price point won't support larger lots.
I am all for good priced construction, groups like Habitat for Humanity would benefit too, but to ignore known savings and counter with "jobs" and such without quantifying it all comes across as a late night infomercial
Re: A house that costs $20k
#143This house is not for you. This house is for poor people who live in rural or urban decaying homes. Their roofs leak and collapse, their insulation in non-existent, their plumbing doesn't work. This is a big issue, and having worked with a number of situations like this, being able to get someone a new house for $20K that functions would be huge. $20K (or even $30K) for a functional, well-designed, "tornado-resistant…
This house is not for you. This house is for poor people
Not everybody who earns a good income is required to spend it on pointless status-signaling. Some of us enjoy inexpensive, low-footprint, low-consumption living.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#144Not of personal use for me, but they should just put the plans on github or even a blog. Couldn't find any detail on the site (http://www.ruralstudio.org/)
Re: A house that costs $20k
#145So the location is in a small town somewhere so likely not many job around. That means either you are okay with a homestead type of living or are rich enough to buy this as a second home.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm Canadian, not American, but perhaps? I honestly (literally) don't understand what shocks you exactly. Save money -> invest money to grow savings -> time passes -> eventually you have enough to buy a home, if you want. I'm guessing you're saying that homes are so expensive, most people could not reasonably afford one even with disciplined saving and investing. But at least as a long term state, that seems logicall…
Like I said, I think we have a similar view. My objection if any, is based on the idea of a risk based portfolio. But it seems you actually mean more generally: savings. All these issues are of course very local. Being English I probably have a very different perspective on what the issues are regarding the affordability of houses, let alone what our specific views are. Primarily I see housing as a necessity rather t…
> Being English …. Primarily I see housing as a necessity rather than a financial opportunity.
This is the opposite of what most English people seem to value, and vote in policies for. Is there any other country where property is treated so much as an investment?
This[1] system is a good way to have reasonable rent, essentially a housing association. But housing associations in England are only for poor people; not the case in other European countries like Germany and Scandinavia.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#147The $20k is an aspiration (read, total bs atm), the pictures you're seeing are for a house that cost $135k.
http://www.artsatl.com/2016/01/serenbe-rural-studio-artist-r...
It must be mentioned that houses carry a huge location premium, everyone knows this. You can buy a big beautiful home in the middle of nowhere for the cost of a studio in the middle of NY or SF.
Living isn't all that expensive, living close to where jobs are, or close to the 'heart' of a vibrant local culture, that's expensive, and it looks like the actual cost of building isn't the most significant part of that equation. Land is expensive, so you need to go up, and building up and space-efficiently (i.e. reasonably tall buildings with smart, space efficient units) is where a lot of these 'open-source plans for cheap rural houses with materials from Home Depot' completely do not apply.
It's a bit like building your own PC. Yeah you can build a much more powerful machine at a cheaper rate than a Macbook... but you're forgoing all kinds of factors like mobility which are extremely essential to many of today's consumers. Similarly, you can build a cheap rural home and completely forgo on extremely essential factors like proximity to jobs, culture and infrastructure.
It's great for some people, but not for most.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#148It's kind of hard for me to tell whether the house is nicer than mine when there's so little detail in the article on the actual house. Look, i'm more than supportive of innovative design and doing things cheaply, but for an article that was heavy on "the house is so cheap", and "its built kinda more like a airplane", and "it uses all this innovative stuff", there's a startling dearth of information. Sqm, plans, insu…
Here's what looks like more info from the designers.
It's a really cool program. Each year they come up with a house design and BUILD it for http://www.ruralstudio.org/projects/20k-v8-daves-house
search the projects tab to see all of them back to 2005
Re: A house that costs $20k
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
One facet of it is cultural: For a lot of people, someone isn't seen as a "real adult" until he or she owns a residence. (Obligatory "if you have a mortgage you're just renting from the bank and have to fix the water heater yourself" line here.) Another is financial: There are heavy tax incentives towards ownership, though this is lessened in the era of cheap money. (On the other hand, if a mortgage can be had for ch…
So, the US favours owning residences because renters have nigh zero legal protection?
There are significant regional differences too. As other threads have pointed out, this house is designed for parts of the country where the land has very near zero value, and may have been in the family for over 200 years.
Contrariwise, I live in coastal California. When I first moved here, I paid USD 1000 per month to rent a large 1 bedroom apartment within walking distance of downtown (and only 400m walk from work!). To buy an apartment of similar size at the time was roughly USD 350 000 and it would be further from downtown.
Also, California has stronger renter protection laws, and the city I live in has a few more. For various reasons poor people may not wish to exercise those rights (arrest warrant, status as illegal immigrant, unpaid fines), so there are still a lot of shady dealings with renting, but a large fraction of those are already priced out of owning a home, even living with 3+ people per bedroom.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want to know too; having somewhat recently bought a house, and I've started to upgrade it. I can see $20,000 going really fast for simple things.
Indeed, I bought a "handyman's delight" (i.e. money pit) for $43k just outside Atlanta during the recession in 2009, and to get it to roughly the same condition as my neighbor's house, I'd have to spend another $40k. It's mostly cosmetic work that it needs, but there are some structural and functional issues that need to be addressed as well. We're still debating whether we should hold onto it and fix it up (it curre…
My father has been in the Atlanta metro real estate market for 2 decades. Is an appraiser, agent, and licensed inspector. I'd be happy to pass his info if you're interested in a professional opinion.