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Household size and the housing stock

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Re: Household size and the housing stock

#11

Post by vkou »

swatcoder wrote: post #9
zbrozek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 be…

People building their own homes are outliers.

Most homes are built by cookie-cutter block developments, and they make the most money by:

1. Minimizing the size of their lots.

2. Maximizing the size of the homes on the lots.

They subdivide as much as they are allowed to, and build as big as they are allowed to. If the houses in your city are too big, it's because the smallest allowed lot size is.

If we ever caught up with the housing shortage, and there was a glut of housing on the market, maybe developers would start to build smaller, but we aren't there, and we won't be there for the next ~30 years.

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#12

Post by brailsafe »

willcipriano wrote: post #4
DoreenMichele wrote: post #2

In 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.

Whether not that's true, it doesn't explain the visible insanity of new suburbs

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#13

Post by Spivak »

zbrozek wrote: post #3
DoreenMichele wrote: post #2

In 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.

I worry about the unintended consequences of a plan like this because you might inadvertently break the cycle of the average neighborhood getting more desirable over time. And as much as it's silly that our entire financial system depends on the spice flowing it's where we're at. Having lots of square footage and (relatively speaking) spacious lots means that neighborhoods can grow to be roughly as nice as the residents have money.

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#14

Post by swatcoder »

vkou wrote: post #11
swatcoder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 be…

People building their own homes are outliers. Most homes are built by cookie-cutter block developments, and they make the most money by: 1. Minimizing the size of their lots. 2. Maximizing the size of the homes on the lots. They subdivide as much as they are allowed to, and build as big as they are allowed to. If the houses in your city are too big, it's because the smallest allowed lot size is. If we ever caught up…

Again: I know builders.

The size of the home is not a structural rule of the building industry, and is not universal or permanent. Just like any business, it's something builders decide based on who their market is and what they think they'll buy.

The described strategy might be what you're seeing in your area and might be the only thing that makes sense to your own tastes, but there are plenty of cities and counties where the pressing demand from buyers is for other things. In trend-leading communities, demand has been growing for years for denser housing with immediate access to retail and commerce; for efficient homes with low utility costs or green considerations; for small houses, condos, and townhouses that are well-appointed but accessibly priced and low-maintenance, etc and this is what builders have been building when they've been able to get cleared to build at all.

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#15

Post by giantg2 »

zbrozek wrote: post #3
DoreenMichele wrote: post #2

In 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.

"Not enough is legal, and not enough is built as a result."

It's a preferences and distribution problem. There are plenty of places with vacancies or where it is legal and practical to build. The problem is people don't want to live there or it has too few jobs. If the market works the way it should, then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibrium. The problem is many of the companies that had easy money and extreme growth concentrated it one region and skewed the market. Most of the US does not have a housing issue as nationally housing units exceed "households". We could accommodate everyone, but it's largely a distribution and preferences issue.

https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/are-there-more-homes-people...

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#16

Post by giantg2 »

swatcoder wrote: post #14
vkou wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People building their own homes are outliers. Most homes are built by cookie-cutter block developments, and they make the most money by: 1. Minimizing the size of their lots. 2. Maximizing the size of the homes on the lots. They subdivide as much as they are allowed to, and build as big as they are allowed to. If the houses in your city are too big, it's because the smallest allowed lot size is. If we ever caught up…

Again: I know builders. The size of the home is not a structural rule of the building industry, and is not universal or permanent. Just like any business, it's something builders decide based on who their market is and what they think they'll buy. The described strategy might be what you're seeing in your area and might be the only thing that makes sense to your own tastes, but there are plenty of cities and counties…

On a national level, the trends are that home size is increasing and lot size is decreasing. Sure there will be some local variances, and it is driven by what the market will support, but it's still the general trend.

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#17

Post by giantg2 »

crooked-v wrote: post #8
underlipton wrote: post #6

I 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.

There are housing shortages in localities due mostly to distribution issues. Nationally, the number of housing units exceeds the number of households (families). In theory that market should correct this by causing places (San Francisco, in your example) to be less attractive and people will choose other places to work and live.

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#18

Post by riku_iki »

giantg2 wrote: post #15
zbrozek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Not enough is legal, and not enough is built as a result." It's a preferences and distribution problem. There are plenty of places with vacancies or where it is legal and practical to build. The problem is people don't want to live there or it has too few jobs. If the market works the way it should, then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibri…

> then people should shift out of the tighter areas and into the looser areas, reaching something closer to an equilibrium

thats if infrastructure(roads, airports, hospitals, grid, etc) will appear there

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#19

Post by zbrozek »

giantg2 wrote: post #17
crooked-v wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are housing shortages in localities due mostly to distribution issues. Nationally, the number of housing units exceeds the number of households (families). In theory that market should correct this by causing places (San Francisco, in your example) to be less attractive and people will choose other places to work and live.

You may have noticed a broad swell in house prices across the nation as the pandemic freed folks to work remotely.

10% vacancy is generally considered ok. 5% is what New York state defines as an emergency. Even Buffalo is at 4.9%.

The shortage is real.

Re: Household size and the housing stock

#20

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

willcipriano wrote: post #4
DoreenMichele wrote: post #2

In 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.

Finished basements without egress up to code can’t count in the sq ft of the listed properties.

These also don’t exist in the south since there’s no need to get below a frost line.

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