Household size and the housing stock
kevinerdmann.substack.com
Household size and the housing stock
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Re: Household size and the housing stock
#2In the 1950s, average size of new homes was about 1200 square feet. In 2000, it was more than 2400 square feet and held one less person (iirc: 4.5 VS 3.5 people).
We are building 1950s suburban homes on steroids in a post-baby-boom world where average household size has shrunk.
There are a lot of problems with this.
Re: Household size and the housing stock
#3In the 1950s, average size of new homes was about 1200 square feet. In 2000, it was more than 2400 square feet and held one less person (iirc: 4.5 VS 3.5 people). We are building 1950s suburban homes on steroids in a post-baby-boom world where average household size has shrunk. There are a lot of problems with this.
You build the biggest thing you can within a parcel because there is plenty of demand at the top of the market. Want more, smaller homes? Reduce or eliminate minimum lot sizes, setbacks, constraints on number of units, and process required towards entitlement.
What is legal is what gets built. Not enough is legal, and not enough is built as a result.
Re: Household size and the housing stock
#4In the 1950s, average size of new homes was about 1200 square feet. In 2000, it was more than 2400 square feet and held one less person (iirc: 4.5 VS 3.5 people). We are building 1950s suburban homes on steroids in a post-baby-boom world where average household size has shrunk. There are a lot of problems with this.
Finished basements.
The house in 1950 had a unfinished basement and was listed at 1200 sq ft. They finished the basement and later sold it as 2400. The difference is a couple pallets of drywall.
Re: Household size and the housing stock
#5In the 1950s, average size of new homes was about 1200 square feet. In 2000, it was more than 2400 square feet and held one less person (iirc: 4.5 VS 3.5 people). We are building 1950s suburban homes on steroids in a post-baby-boom world where average household size has shrunk. There are a lot of problems with this.
Finished basements. The house in 1950 had a unfinished basement and was listed at 1200 sq ft. They finished the basement and later sold it as 2400. The difference is a couple pallets of drywall.
No basements in western states :)
Re: Household size and the housing stock
#6I don't buy it. One thing that stands out to me: he has a ton of charts, but this crucial bit:
>But, since 2008, vacancies have been declining steeply.
is missing one. It looks like this statement is based on his estimates. So... original research. I'll leave it to an actual statistician to analyze his methodology, but that statement doesn't jive with my experience.
I continue to suspect that the "housing shortage" (similar to the "labor shortage") is due to a mismatch between the value that industry expects and what are actually the rates necessary to support the population. Powerful institutions representing wealthy individuals and groups, and large swathes of people, like the status quo; it is, in fact, fundamental to their lifestyle, their finances, the overall economy, and they will (and have) done everything they can to keep prices and the perception of scarcity high. The situation doesn't seem rational from an inventory/demand standpoint because it isn't; there are enough house, and they should be worth less and more affordable. But we won't return to reality until the privileging of incumbents ends.
Re: Household size and the housing stock
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Finished basements. The house in 1950 had a unfinished basement and was listed at 1200 sq ft. They finished the basement and later sold it as 2400. The difference is a couple pallets of drywall.
No basements in western states :)
I've lived in Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Colorado and I've seen and lived in plenty of places with basements.
Re: Household size and the housing stock
#8I don't buy it. One thing that stands out to me: he has a ton of charts, but this crucial bit: >But, since 2008, vacancies have been declining steeply. is missing one. It looks like this statement is based on his estimates. So... original research. I'll leave it to an actual statistician to analyze his methodology, but that statement doesn't jive with my experience. I continue to suspect that the "housing shortage" (…
The "housing shortage" is due to a shortage of housing. This is entirely self-inflicted by various cities that have illegalized all the easy ways of increasing density (see San Francisco for the reductio ad absurdum case), at the prompting of deeply NIMBY voters who oppose anything that will increase construction regardless of claimed political beliefs.
Re: Household size and the housing stock
#9In the 1950s, average size of new homes was about 1200 square feet. In 2000, it was more than 2400 square feet and held one less person (iirc: 4.5 VS 3.5 people). We are building 1950s suburban homes on steroids in a post-baby-boom world where average household size has shrunk. There are a lot of problems with this.
You build the biggest thing you can within a parcel because there is plenty of demand at the top of the market. Want more, smaller homes? Reduce or eliminate minimum lot sizes, setbacks, constraints on number of units, and process required towards entitlement. What is legal is what gets built. Not enough is legal, and not enough is built as a result.
> You build the biggest thing you can within a parcel because there is plenty of demand at the top of the market.
I know many people who have built many homes and I don't know a single one who thought that way or built a house that reflects it.
While impacted by practical needs to a degree, preferred home size is just a fashion that changes over time and amounts to personal taste.
The 3500sf McMansion of yesterday becomes the "who would want to maintain and heat all that?!" of tomorrow, the cramped matchbox of yesterday becomes the Eco Friendly Tiny Home of tomorrow, etc
People build for the intersection of they want to budget and either: what they want to live in, or what their near-term anticipated buyer is assumed to want in light of current trends.
Re: Household size and the housing stock
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Finished basements. The house in 1950 had a unfinished basement and was listed at 1200 sq ft. They finished the basement and later sold it as 2400. The difference is a couple pallets of drywall.
No basements in western states :)
My family lived from 1969 through 2006 in a house in Colorado with a basement. My stepmother--who grew up in a region with cooler summers--ight have perished of heat exhaustion but for the basement. What anyone in particular had outside our neighborhood, I can't say; but I think that basements were not unusual in Denver.