A house that costs $20k • Hacker News Board

Re: A house that costs $20k

#191

Post by OrwellianChild » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:16 PM UTC

ap3 wrote: post #126

shoover wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't thought about first time home ownership in terms of access to the market like that. Possibly related (among other factors) in 2008 the US tax code gave $8000 tax credits to first time homebuyers. It was enough for me to jump from renting a little earlier, because I knew that money would be there to fund repairs and start chipping away at the mortgage principal. Of course this assumes prices are in reach and…

You do understand that the $8000 tax credit just made houses more expensive right ?

Not when the tax credit is only for first time buyers and the majority of buyers are not first-time... This type of credit is an attempt to address the concern of @okc in providing preference to new home buyers over existing homeowners.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#192

Post by Raticide » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:23 PM UTC

Around where I live it's the land that costs you the most, so it doesn't really matter what the house costs. Hell, some people buy a property and give away the building for free to anyone that's willing to move it off their land.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#193

Post by kedean » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:41 PM UTC

jensen123 wrote: post #121

NoGravitas wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely common in the US.

Huh, that doesn't make any sense to me. Smaller houses would make cities more walkable/livable and thus be better for people's health and the environment. Do people want those kinds of laws in order to protect their "investment"? I mean, I guess maybe your house will be worth more if all the other houses nearby are large and thus expensive? Of course, now in the digital age, I guess such laws seem sillier than they d…

Many cities and developers would either rather have bigger houses and the kind of people who can afford them, or squash as many people per square foot as possible by building up.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#194

Post by zanny » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

strgrd wrote: post #154

rubidium wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where can I buy one though?

At least in the US, zoning and construction ordinances are incredible barriers to innovation and are part of the reason why the real estate market is out of control. These were systems put in place decades ago, often due to class warfare to keep the "riff-raff" out of desirable neighborhoods, that punish innovation and progress towards sustainable and affordable housing.

I cannot help but feel like a lot of the problems in the over-regulation of construction and real estate is due to public ignorance and apathy. If people cared more about how well built their homes were, we would not have needed tremendous government regulation to force builders to build safe houses. My father works construction and between the UCC being dozens of chapters long and every municipality having its own grandfathered in or exceptional bullshit make breaking ground a minefield of bureaucratic nightmare.

In hindsight, I wish we could have produced third party unaffiliated review boards for new construction so that builders could get their blueprints and finish products certified. We could have had an industry of competitive certification processes directed towards homebuilding, and the most trustworthy and reliable certifications would have gained name recognition builders would desire for well built property. Then we could avoid this entire trainwreck of bureaucracy, but understandably volunteer certification doesn't help the poverty stricken when being offered a "cannot be beat" deal on a derelict unsafe house, which is the root problem in all this. It is just generally a mess and as someone coming from a software background who has a father in construction to hear all the disasters from, wish there were a more obvious solution other than "try deregulating and hope you don't get the poor killed or screwed over in the process".

Re: A house that costs $20k

#195

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

jleahy wrote: post #52

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #27

It'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…

Plus they explicitly said that it's going to cost more than $20,000...

It's more than $20,000 if you have someone build it for you. If you build it yourself, it's $14,000 (plus your time and labor).

One thing they didn't mention: land cost.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#196

Post by okc » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 10:00 PM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #190

okc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Do you think people who own a house should be allowed to buy a 2nd one and push first time buyers out the market? Just to address this, first, yes , I absolutely think people need to be able to buy a second house. There is also a natural impediment in place of investors buying up "too many" houses. The reason is, if there are more houses on the rental market than there is demand for rentals, it will drive rental ra…

I generally follow the logic. Though, if salaries are not enough to support a mortgage application this model will trap people in a renting cycle. A precarious one at that. The interesting part in the model you present is the use of investment portfolios to get on the housing ladder. Its as if working hard isn't enough, you need some extra device, with a degree of risk and luck to make the leap to home ownership.

Its great to imagine what would happen if people couldn't buy second homes, or being innovative over how a special tax rate could be applied to young people. No-one really knows the answers until it happens. My gut feeling is that renting is unethical - I know I couldn't bring myself to make money out of someone renting if I had my own house and enough money already. But that's it, none of these issues are based on isolated models.

My crude knee jerk ideas: A maximum cap on rental prices indexed to minimum wage.

A preference model where first time buyers get 1st picks.

A trusted simple well thought out online platform that makes buying and selling a house as easy as possible (replacing the trickery of estate agents).

And for Landlords: Absolutely robust laws always favouring the right of the tenant, so landlords are forced to acknowledge a social responsibility to their tenants - what bigger responsibility could you have for another human being then being a Landlord.

An online platform where tenants can request references on Landlords from old tenants.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#197

Post by ljf » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 10:08 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #181

ljf wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, my home is from the early 1800s and my parents house was first built in the 1600s, but most of the current part was built in the early 1700s. Both of these houses are perfectly functional and warm, and barely use that much more energy than most modern houses (we've insulated them well and use efficient lighting etc). And yes they do have inside toilets ;) I guess housing stock in the UK is just much older.

Some of that is survivorship bias however. Crappy homes from the 1600s aren't around anymore. The longer an area has been built up the larger percentage of the houses are well built due to the poorly built houses constantly dying out by the well built houses sticking around.

True, I won't disagree with that, but in the small town I live in most of the houses in the middle of town are 100 to 150 years old - and there aren't many 'missing houses' that have been replaced with new ones since they weren't good enough to last (as far as I can see).

Even in London, the terraced house we own is about 150 years old, as are all the houses in the street and pretty much the area - very few of these needed replacing unless they were bombed in the second world war, or some other catastrophic event.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#198

Post by zanny » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 11:05 PM UTC

forgetsusername wrote: post #98

DiabloD3 wrote: post #20

Earlier 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…

> so that getting a mortgage wouldn't be hard for them in the first place. So, you think that paying massive amounts of interest to financial institutions, over decades, all while being tied to a specific physical location and having a disproportionate amount of your wealth tied up in a single asset class is "fiscally responsible"? > We need less stupid people, to put it frankly. The word you're looking for is "fewer…

Can you not sell your house and refinance it under a new owner? You pay off your current loan with the bank money they take out to buy the house from you.

I think the fundamental point is simple - if you are renting, you are consuming. If you own, you are partially investing. On the other side of life, either you have purchased an asset or have nothing to show for a significant portion of your time.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#199

Post by zanny » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 11:08 PM UTC

forgetsusername wrote: post #99

makomk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a functioning market rents bring in just a tiny bit more than the monthly mortgage payment, including taxes and fees. Which means rent is still transferring money from the poor to the rich. If you have a mortgage, you're hopefully building up equity that can be released when you retire to somewhere smaller or in a cheaper location (which you can do, since you don't need to live near jobs and any kids will have m…

> f you have a mortgage, you're hopefully building up equity that can be released when you retire to somewhere smaller or in a cheaper location In other words, you're relying on the "Greater Fool Theory" of perpetually increasing house prices. There is nothing special about real estate as an asset class.

If I want oil, I can go find some and drill for it anywhere that makes fiscal sense.

If I want clay, I can go find a riverbed and start digging.

If I want the corner of Fourth and Chester for commercial traffic, my options are a bit more limited.

The problem with land is not about its scarcity, its about its situational utility. The value of land is often completely out of control of the property owner themself, and you cannot create new city centers or in-demand residential neighborhoods in private enterprise.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#200

Post by zanny » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 11:12 PM UTC

jensen123 wrote: post #121

NoGravitas wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely common in the US.

Huh, that doesn't make any sense to me. Smaller houses would make cities more walkable/livable and thus be better for people's health and the environment. Do people want those kinds of laws in order to protect their "investment"? I mean, I guess maybe your house will be worth more if all the other houses nearby are large and thus expensive? Of course, now in the digital age, I guess such laws seem sillier than they d…

Zoning and construction regulation has obviously not kept pace with the changing social expectations of housing nor innovation in building construction. And you are right, a lot of it was enacted (especially minimum square footage zoning) in response to trying to keep "undesirables" out of areas in the aftermath of white flight from urban centers in the 50s / 60s and has remained ever since, since the children of the generation that enacted those laws grew up being preached to how bad non-conformance is and they are now the largest voting block in America.