61–70 of 149 posts
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Where would you build them? You’d need to first “seed” new neighborhoods with subway stations “in the middle of nowhere”…
As soon as you announce a new subway station the vultures descend and prices will ratchet up as speculators by land and sit in it, waiting for the hither bidder.
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In my view, it's also the aspect ratio of the lots. Most suburban lots are fairly close to square. That leaves wide side yards that are just wasted space. Who ever really does anything in their side yard? Lots should be narrower. You could get more houses on a block, and they'd could all still have a usable front and back yard. In fact I'd allow them to be built closer to the street, because nobody really uses their…
Wide side yards are moats to keep you away from your neighbors. This is widely seen as a feature, not a bug.
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We don’t live in the 1950’s anymore. When you and your spouse are working from home and have 2+ teenagers 1200 ain’t gonna cut it. Insisting on horrible conditions to raise a family in the modern world is not going to encourage people to have children.
Whatever we are doing now is also not encouraging people to have children. I'm sure many young people would rather choose a 1200 sqft home than no home at all, which is currently the case. Your example of two teenagers is only relevant for 6 years of a family's lifetime. Why should we optimise for those 6 years?
And we don't need to be "optimizing" like you're talking about. "Well it's only 6 years of our life, not a big deal for everyone to suffer that long!" Good lord. Just build the houses people want. And clearly some of them want the SQFT - we can meet that demand.
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In my view, it's also the aspect ratio of the lots. Most suburban lots are fairly close to square. That leaves wide side yards that are just wasted space. Who ever really does anything in their side yard? Lots should be narrower. You could get more houses on a block, and they'd could all still have a usable front and back yard. In fact I'd allow them to be built closer to the street, because nobody really uses their…
Wide side yards are moats to keep you away from your neighbors. This is widely seen as a feature, not a bug.
The way to solve the problem is making it a bad investment asset.
The best way to do it is to tax real estate progressively. The more you own, the higher percentage of its value you must pay every year.
That taxation scheme would make investors drop millions of houses on the market like a hot potato.
Prices would tank. This might cause issues with real estate as mortgage collateral. So that needs to be reformed first. Bank would need to be forced by law to accept swapping collateral for another of the same value. Regardless of the current price of the collateral and its replacement. They should also be forced to consider mortgage fully paid once they decide to end the loan and take posession of the collateral.
Also no bailouts. Banks are companies. Superpower of companies is that they can die. Let them.
It's always struck me that housing regulation (well, a lot of regulation really) is written by rich people for rich people. When I moved out of home I'd have been perfectly willing to live in a minimally insulated log cabin, shipping container, etc of sorts with basic running water and wiring that consisted of me running conduit up the walls. I could then upgrade it slowly over time with insulation, stud walls, etc e…
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Whatever we are doing now is also not encouraging people to have children. I'm sure many young people would rather choose a 1200 sqft home than no home at all, which is currently the case. Your example of two teenagers is only relevant for 6 years of a family's lifetime. Why should we optimise for those 6 years?
My spouse and I chose to have kids because we could provide for them and house them in nice conditions. I would support making that a reality for more people. There are new suburbs that are slowly coming online where I live, just a little further out than what's currently available, and more of that would be great. And we don't need to be "optimizing" like you're talking about. "Well it's only 6 years of our life, no…
My spouse and I also went for the kids when we were financially stable, and now we live in a 1500 sqft home, and I don't see why would we need a bigger one. We both work from home, the kids have their own rooms, we even have a tiny guest room.
What would I do with a 2400 sqft one? Cleaning and maintaining thus one is already a lot of work.
In a situation where there is a housing crisis all over the West, building bigger houses, except for a niche market that does exist, just doesn't make sense.
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So why enough housing is not getting build in Europe, surely they don't have crazy american rules but still facing severe housing shortages all over.
> surely they don't have crazy american rules Surely they have crazy European rules instead? The EU isn't exactly known for a lack of rules.
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My spouse and I chose to have kids because we could provide for them and house them in nice conditions. I would support making that a reality for more people. There are new suburbs that are slowly coming online where I live, just a little further out than what's currently available, and more of that would be great. And we don't need to be "optimizing" like you're talking about. "Well it's only 6 years of our life, no…
How is living in a 1200 sqft "suffering"? My spouse and I also went for the kids when we were financially stable, and now we live in a 1500 sqft home, and I don't see why would we need a bigger one. We both work from home, the kids have their own rooms, we even have a tiny guest room. What would I do with a 2400 sqft one? Cleaning and maintaining thus one is already a lot of work. In a situation where there is a hous…
Around here, I think there is definitely a market for bigger houses, because any house with 3K+ sqft sells for a butt ton and people are tripping over each other to fight for them. The new suburbs that are being built are getting a ton of demand and their prices have spiked in the past few years at a far greater rate than surrounding housing.
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> 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…
The trend in Seattle at least is to take one SFH policy and build three town homes on it that don’t share walls but have the minimum buffers between them and the property line. People don’t really build homes at all, developers do, and they want to maximize the earnings they can get on an expensive plot of land.
(And probably it is mostly about making legal and construction matters easier? No party wall; if you want to tear it down and put a new one up you can do so without disturbing the neighbours' property, etc.)