Terrible article... no mention of plumbing, toilets, heating, ductwork, or electricity, which are the main factors that dictate how normal houses are designed (which is why materials like cob aren't the game-changers that their devoted proponents claim).
A house that costs $20k
171–180 of 212 posts
Re: A house that costs $20k
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried to build a nice, cheap small house and ran into these exact same regulations. Almost all of the regulations we hit were from the 'International Building Code' which covers a large part of the US. I'd say building a to code house here costs at least $50k - $60k. This is just bare minimum meet the code. To add to your list: - composting toilets are allowed, but you still need a sewer hookup available, just in c…
This is why tiny houses on trailers took off; it sidesteps building code due to them being classified as RVs.
Except you can't legally park and live in them in many cities. Sure you can relocate if you get caught, but how many times before they catch on and you get in big trouble? Its a more practical way to break the rules, but in most places you are still breaking the rules.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#173> How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford Why not rent a flat instead? Wouldn't that be much more economical (no property prices, lower heating costs, less maintenance work, less risk, not built on the cheap)? I don't understand the fixation on owning a house / living in a single-family house many americans seem to have.
Rent does not build wealth. Rent is the act of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich. Rent is, essentially, theft from society itself, it leaves everyone poorer when most people rent. Rent in America today is identical to the serfs of old. The post-WW2 thing the Government did with getting everyone mortgages so they would be home owners that caused the eventual economic collapse 10 years ago? They had the rig…
They probably did the wrong thing with mortgages-for-all. They set up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as mortgage clearing houses that repackaged the loans into investments. So the net effect made all owners with a mortgage functionally equivalent to renters with a landlord, but with fewer obligations on the financiers. If you have a mortgage, you effectively have an absentee landlord with an agent on Wall Street, who doesn't even know your name.
They probably should have made mortgages secured by land property illegal to offer, except by credit unions serving a geographical region. That would severely limit housing options in less developed regions, but at least the money invested in housing there would stay there instead of getting siphoned off to international finance centers. If your mortgage payment goes to all your neighbors, you can get it back from them every month by offering them local goods and services. If it goes to a holding company, there's nothing you have to offer that it wants, other than cash. So that cash has to come from whatever it is that your region can export.
If the only thing Appalachia has for export is coal and whiskey, then everyone with a non-locally-owned mortgage is dependent on those industries to make payments.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#174Historical weather records in the vicinity: http://en.tutiempo.net/climate/2015/ws-722286.html
Re: A house that costs $20k
#175It'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…
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.
This is starting from scratch, though. You have existing stuff that you have to work within.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
They left out current building codes. I have a general contractor's licence. To build anything involves so many rules/codes it's rediculious. Every year the building department in your town/city usually includes the latest codes, and prohibits so many things. It all sounds great until you are paying someone to build something. The various building code manuals take up at least two feet of space on my shelf. Where I l…
I tried to build a nice, cheap small house and ran into these exact same regulations. Almost all of the regulations we hit were from the 'International Building Code' which covers a large part of the US. I'd say building a to code house here costs at least $50k - $60k. This is just bare minimum meet the code. To add to your list: - composting toilets are allowed, but you still need a sewer hookup available, just in c…
That's why a lot of the tiny houses are built on trailers. They're technically RVs then, and most of those regulations don't apply.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rent does not build wealth. Rent is the act of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich. Rent is, essentially, theft from society itself, it leaves everyone poorer when most people rent. Rent in America today is identical to the serfs of old. The post-WW2 thing the Government did with getting everyone mortgages so they would be home owners that caused the eventual economic collapse 10 years ago? They had the rig…
> Rent is, essentially, theft from society itself, it leaves everyone poorer when most people rent. Not necessarily. It depends on whom you're giving the money to. If it's a profit-oriented company or investor or the like, then I'd tend to agree with you. On the other hand, I'm renting my apartment from a housing cooperative that I'm also a member of. The cooperative releases a yearly financial report detailing that…
Renting from a company that you own sounds like a really convoluted version of buying something. I'm guessing there are more shareholders than just the tenants? You basically have a full year timeshare from the sound of it.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#178"This House Costs Just $20,000—But It’s Nicer Than Yours"
later:
"In Serenbe, their first problem was a zoning issue: The houses were too small."
It sounds like this house is probably not nicer than mine. Titles like this really annoy me for some reason.
Re: A house that costs $20k
#179> How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford Why not rent a flat instead? Wouldn't that be much more economical (no property prices, lower heating costs, less maintenance work, less risk, not built on the cheap)? I don't understand the fixation on owning a house / living in a single-family house many americans seem to have.
My experience is that owning is cheaper than renting in the long run. It makes sense in the broad context because when you rent you still have to cover all of the costs, but they just get hidden in your monthly rent, and additionally you need to pay the landlord--an expense you don't have with ownership. There is a modest benefit in spreading out the risk as well, if you have a major maintenance expense you won't be responsible for the cost up front, however homeowners can purchase insurance that does the same thing (but are usually a pretty bad deal IMHO).
There are some efficiencies to renting. The maintenance can be done by dedicated staff at negotiated rates instead of having to hire outside work. But the efficiencies don't really appear until you're living in a massive complex with lots of other customers to spread the cost around.
When I bought my first house my $1700/month rent for a 800 square foot apartment became a $1000/month mortgage for a 1400 square foot townhouse in a better part of town. And unlike renting I would eventually run out of mortgage after 30 years and have a big asset in my name, one that is likely to appreciate in value over the long term.
In the long term renting is a pretty bad deal for everybody but the landlord.