Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

centerforbuilding.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 215 posts

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#131

Post by TheChaplain »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #8

I'm not an expert on building codes but a large difference in North America is there is much more space in general when building new so I don't quite think the argument is valid. Americans simply want a lot more space. If a developer built smaller sized 3 or 4 bedroom apartments they would have trouble selling to the price point they want.

Building codes are much more than you think. At least in Europe there are codes for accessibility, dwelling design, room height, utility rooms, mechanical resistance, stability, hygiene, environment, noise levels, general safety, energy management, sewage, power, even bathrooms must be done by certified people.

All those above are just few and general top-hierarchy of a forest of rules.

Yes, those are all important and good for you, BUT all that add up to the cost for the actual build.

The land itself that is to be developed has to go through a long line of expensive processes, tests and certifications. Investigations to ensure that there is no disturbing bird nesting areas, or too close to small streams that may have rare species.

Again, all that is good, but cost and will drive up the price of the final product.

I've a relative in construction, and he notes that margins are so small it doesn't make much sense for all that effort when there are other options.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#132

Post by bouncing »

idixbebr wrote: post #128
sandworm101 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many reasons behind this. It isn't just a fashion for bigger things. I chalk much of it up to differences in work culture. My European friends often talk about pickup up food on the way home from work, dropping in at a store to buy ingredients for dinner. I don't have time to shop like that. My food run is once a week. That means more food in a bigger fridge. They also go out to eat far more than we in Nort…

plenty of people in america get take out, sounds like you’re just a workaholic

Take-out is so much cheaper in Europe than America. Not just Portugal, either. Take-out in Italy is dirty cheap and despite all of my hopes and dreams, I'll never cook something as good as what I can get for like 5 euros from a gas station in Italy.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#133

Post by bouncing »

varjag wrote: post #32
bouncing wrote: post #2

> In February, I, along with real estate developer Bobby Fijan, went on the Bloomberg podcast Odd Lots to talk about why it’s so hard to find a family-sized apartment in the United States. I argued that North American zoning and building codes work together to drive up the size of multi-bedroom apartments in particular, putting them financially out of reach for many parents raising children. In other words, even if d…

Is this some old building? One egress on above ground floors is many decades since illegal to develop in EU harmonized bulding codes. The only exception I think if there are sprinkler points in the rooms. And TBH you can't really extrapolate your residence in one place to conditions in all of Europe, it is quite different.

> Is this some old building?

Not that old. 2010, maybe?

It's a building with 4 stories. We're on the second (Portuguese would call it the first floor; like hackers, they count the ground floor as zero).

If you walk out our door, you see an elevator and a stairwell with an insulated steel door to the stairs. That's it; that's the only point of egress.

Though in a pinch, I could jump from the balcony and probably just break an ankle or something.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#134

Post by bluGill »

tomrod wrote: post #16
pwb25 wrote: post #10

basically everything I read about the USA housing market seems so weird, especially in SF/Silicon Valley. They makret themselves as being this "tech area" yet they have 100 year old houses with limits of 2 floors. or big suburbs without anything in them. Where is the uber, airbnb and doordash for housing?

Sued out of existence for ignoring licensing laws during startup, I'd reckon. Or, contractors. I get the feeling residential building doesn't scale well outside of monopolistic competition, partially from red tape, partially from supply constraints/supplier network monopsonies.

Single family homes are easy to build. I could build one myself - just myself in about a year (worked on a framing crew and have done every part of building a house). With access to experienced subcontractors (plumbers, concrete...) a house can be built by "one man" in just over 100 days, and banks will even give construction loans to someone wanting to attempt this - most inexperienced people can create enough of a plan to convince a banker that in less than one year they will have a house more valuable than the costs and so they will then get a regular mortgage on it.

However apartments because of size quickly get to the point where you cannot build them without already having experience. Banks know that the details are just enough more complex than a small house that they won't risk a loan on someone without experience. Which opens the question: how do you get experience without experience?

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#135

Post by bouncing »

lxgr wrote: post #68
bouncing wrote: post #2

> In February, I, along with real estate developer Bobby Fijan, went on the Bloomberg podcast Odd Lots to talk about why it’s so hard to find a family-sized apartment in the United States. I argued that North American zoning and building codes work together to drive up the size of multi-bedroom apartments in particular, putting them financially out of reach for many parents raising children. In other words, even if d…

> as an American living in Portugal [...] Just everything in Europe is tiny. Sorry to invoke a cliche here but... Europe doesn't start and end in Portugal. There are plenty of large-family apartments in some cities. Especially new developments usually have a mix of studios, one-bedrooms and beyond. In terms of old buildings (i.e. older than ~100 years), many European cities have apartment buildings designed for wealt…

I've lived/traveled outside of Portugal.

It really holds true across the continent. Stuff is just smaller.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#136

Post by SllX »

nottorp wrote: post #11
bouncing wrote: post #2

> In February, I, along with real estate developer Bobby Fijan, went on the Bloomberg podcast Odd Lots to talk about why it’s so hard to find a family-sized apartment in the United States. I argued that North American zoning and building codes work together to drive up the size of multi-bedroom apartments in particular, putting them financially out of reach for many parents raising children. In other words, even if d…

> the kitchen has a refrigerator smaller than the one my American best friend uses for beer It's possible that you can walk 5 min to get more beer while he has to drive 30 minutes?

Depends on where you are in America because alcohol regulations can vary wildly and some States have dry counties and/or these things I like to call socialist liquor stores, but where I’m at I can get bourbon hand-delivered to me via DoorDash.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#137

Post by wolverine876 »

its_ethan wrote: post #121
wolverine876 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other dense cities besides NY, and they have the highest rents. You are welcome to your own preferences, but why is it important to insist that others can't have different ones? What is it to you if people like cities?

> What is it to you...? If the people who live in cities have some fantasy about how they think people should live, and they push for legislation to be passed to "fix" the issues they see in the city, then laws/rules can end up being applied at a state level. That would then impact the people who opted to not live in a city - where the issues are potentially stemming from in the first place..

Fair enough, though that goes both ways. Lots of people outside cities, especially NY, will tell you how crazy and dangerous they are, impose very dangerous things on them (such as the drug war), and remove local officials elected by citizens (Kentucky state legislature, Florida DAs, Philadelphia DA, etc.).

My impression is that people in major cities don't care what you do in the suburbs.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#138

Post by DANmode »

QuercusMax wrote: post #112
bluescrn wrote: post #25

'Family' and 'Apartment' are words that don't go very well together. Children/large families can be noisy. And they benefit from safe outdoor space to play. For the childless WFH-er trying to concentrate, it's not much fun when kids noisily use the communal areas of apartment buildings as a playground. I know this from experience. Thankfully, noise-cancelling headphones are pretty good these days.

Sounds like you're the one with the problem, not the kids. Your apartment isn't properly soundproofed for you to use as an office. You haven't described a problem for the families with children, you've described a problem for others (you) who are using the building in a way it wasn't designed for.

Kids yelling for extended periods of time isn't welcome in any shared living space, no matter how you square it.

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#139

Post by wolverine876 »

jltsiren wrote: post #120
bluGill wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the famous book "the Wealth of the Nations", it points out that when people get more money they typically spend it on larger/better places to live. Just looking at the historical economy of US and the rest of the world post WWII it shouldn't be a surprise that people live in larger apartments in the US in general. Larger fridges are another luxury that I'd expect in the US as well. However this article is about pe…

> Like you said, fire needs to be considered. Current codes are harming the poor, but it may be less harm than from allowing fire to kill them. The last time there was a discussion on fire codes on HN, I looked up some statistics and reports from Finland. It's a country with an unusually large number of fire deaths per capita for a developed country, because of attitudes and because saunas are common. Almost all fire…

> Almost all fire deaths happened in the unit where the fire started.

That could be because of effective fire codes.

> I couldn't find any reports of fires where a second stairwell accessible from the same corridor would have prevented deaths.

Meaning, you couldn't find anything either way, or in what you found, the second stairwell wouldn't have helped?

Re: Why we can’t build family-sized apartments in North America

#140

Post by lxgr »

bouncing wrote: post #135
lxgr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as an American living in Portugal [...] Just everything in Europe is tiny. Sorry to invoke a cliche here but... Europe doesn't start and end in Portugal. There are plenty of large-family apartments in some cities. Especially new developments usually have a mix of studios, one-bedrooms and beyond. In terms of old buildings (i.e. older than ~100 years), many European cities have apartment buildings designed for wealt…

I've lived/traveled outside of Portugal. It really holds true across the continent. Stuff is just smaller.

With "stuff", are you comparing housing size in general? If so, I think that doesn't make sense given that single-family homes are just much more common in the US than they are in many European countries.

Comparing apartment sizes (i.e. excluding single-family homes) makes more sense in a conversation about family-sized apartments.

In my very limited experience, US apartments in expensive cities are often tiny as well, washer/drier in-unit is not a given (whereas any apartment without a washing machine would be considered archaic/unlivable in many places in Europe), and the most economical option to get more space is to move to a single-family house.

Post reply on HN