The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
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The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
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Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#2The full picture gets worse the more you look into it.
The largest home builders in the nation aren’t building homes at budgets that most can afford.
So you’d say to yourself, well clearly they’re targeting the affluent then. Except there are only so many high income Americans you can sell to, and not all of them want expensive homes.
So what do these builders do? They build-to-rent! Yep. Those single-family homes you see in many large developments you can just think of as so-called “luxury” apartments by a different name.
I suspect most developed nations experiencing this issue are effectively stuck and growth capped markets.
Truly only dedicated policy targeting this problem will make a change, because the capital required to obtain land, rezone it for traditional residential building, then sell it requires either institutional capital, or small builders doing one-offs for select clients.
Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#3Not just the USA
The housing situation in the UK is beyond critical.
Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#4The full picture gets worse the more you look into it. The largest home builders in the nation aren’t building homes at budgets that most can afford. So you’d say to yourself, well clearly they’re targeting the affluent then. Except there are only so many high income Americans you can sell to, and not all of them want expensive homes. So what do these builders do? They build-to-rent! Yep. Those single-family homes yo…
It's a stifling regulatory environment that's landed us here. Zoning is restrictive, planning commissions are slow and restrictive, councils are slow and restrictive. All of the agencies involved want to capture value from construction projects.
The net result is that very few projects pencil out, and the ones that do are expensive. We need to fix the root cause, which is lack of property rights.
Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#5The full picture gets worse the more you look into it. The largest home builders in the nation aren’t building homes at budgets that most can afford. So you’d say to yourself, well clearly they’re targeting the affluent then. Except there are only so many high income Americans you can sell to, and not all of them want expensive homes. So what do these builders do? They build-to-rent! Yep. Those single-family homes yo…
It's a stifling regulatory environment that's landed us here. Zoning is restrictive, planning commissions are slow and restrictive, councils are slow and restrictive. All of the agencies involved want to capture value from construction projects. The net result is that very few projects pencil out, and the ones that do are expensive. We need to fix the root cause, which is lack of property rights.
Zoning for who? America has no issue with single family zoning.
I’m assuming you’re speaking about middle and high density zoning. Since the issues you're describing are extremely common for those zoning projects.
Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a stifling regulatory environment that's landed us here. Zoning is restrictive, planning commissions are slow and restrictive, councils are slow and restrictive. All of the agencies involved want to capture value from construction projects. The net result is that very few projects pencil out, and the ones that do are expensive. We need to fix the root cause, which is lack of property rights.
Zoning for who? America has no issue with single family zoning. I’m assuming you’re speaking about middle and high density zoning. Since the issues you're describing are extremely common for those zoning projects.
If you're the property owner it should be easy for you to build whatever level of residential density you want and think the market will make profitable. Why is it illegal for me to build townhouses on my land?
I'm in an area where it takes, on average, 1.8 acres per single family home. The next town over would put 18 single family homes in that same space. Zoning is restrictive even for single-family homes.
Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#7Not just the USA The housing situation in the UK is beyond critical.
The UK's problems are about distribution not supply. We subsidise OAPs to sit alone in 4 bed houses in areas that need workers, then there is no space or money left for working families...
Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zoning for who? America has no issue with single family zoning. I’m assuming you’re speaking about middle and high density zoning. Since the issues you're describing are extremely common for those zoning projects.
If you're the property owner it should be easy for you to build whatever level of residential density you want and think the market will make profitable. Why is it illegal for me to build townhouses on my land? I'm in an area where it takes, on average, 1.8 acres per single family home. The next town over would put 18 single family homes in that same space. Zoning is restrictive even for single-family homes.
I don't think that's a particularly representative example. Zoning is determined locally in the U.S., and taking the most extreme locality doesn't really shed light on what's going on in the country as a whole, and isn't a useful avenue to approach this problem. Try instead to work with averages and representative localities. The U.S., like any area, has urban, suburban, and rural areas, with a continuous gradient in between. No point in discussing rural or near-rural areas when complaining about zoning, since the real issue is that people in urban areas need access to jobs. People living on the horse farms or rural ranches are not the problem here, and liberalizing zoning in Asheville isn't going to make housing more affordable in Austin or San Francisco, which is where the pain of restrictive zoning is felt.
Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#9Re: The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zoning for who? America has no issue with single family zoning. I’m assuming you’re speaking about middle and high density zoning. Since the issues you're describing are extremely common for those zoning projects.
If you're the property owner it should be easy for you to build whatever level of residential density you want and think the market will make profitable. Why is it illegal for me to build townhouses on my land? I'm in an area where it takes, on average, 1.8 acres per single family home. The next town over would put 18 single family homes in that same space. Zoning is restrictive even for single-family homes.
Zoning density is based partially on supporting infrastructure. If low density suddenly becomes higher density, will the roads be able to handle the additional vehicles/trips? Probably not, so who will cover costs to improve the roads so individuals can build multiple townhomes in their property?