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

centerforbuilding.org

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

#171

Post by lxgr »

bouncing wrote: post #168
lxgr wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wel…

Well yeah, that's a good example. I haven't always had a laundry room in apartments I've rented in the US. When I haven't, there's been a shared machine room that all the tenants use with rows of machines. But most of the apartments I've rented in the US have had laundry rooms . Laundry rooms are, as far as I can tell, something that simply doesn't exist this side of the Atlantic. They put clothes washers in the kitc…

> vented tumble dryers are pretty uncommon

Yeah, they're considered crimes against both delicate fabric and the environment :) Drying racks have the added benefit of humidifying apartments in winter, when the air often gets quite dry from heating.

One peculiarity at least in Germany is that people move with their washing machines (as well as with their kitchens, very often). While I do miss my in-apartment washer a lot, I don't miss having to think about how on earth I'm going to get it to the other side of town without breaking either somebody's back or stairwell...

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

#172

Post by tmnvix »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #49
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…

> Just everything in Europe is tiny. T i n y. And frankly, it's not that much cheaper over here either The real kicker is that price of houses / assets is not attached to physical reality any more. Financialization drives up the price of real estate. When the financial markets trade real estate, no-one gives a rat's ass if it's a mansion or a shed - the only thing that matters is that number goes up. As was demonstra…

Absolutely. Nobody would be paying the current prices if they didn't expect the value to increase. Prices are a reflection of the financial value and not the utility.

This is the reason that interest rates are fundamental. If we really have turned the corner on the steady decline of interest rates that we've seen over the last 20-30 years then property markets are not going to 'plateau'. They will fall to a point where new buyers can afford to service the loans. Of course, as noted above (prices being as high as they are due to expected future increases), if prices are falling then not only do new buyers wait for prices fall to a point where they can service the loans again, but they will also focus more on utility value as public sentiment moves away from 'property prices always go up'. This will compound the falls.

That said, there will undoubtedly be a lot of policy engineering employed to avoid losses and kick the can further down the road. In the long run I don't think it will be successful. The only thing that will save the property market is a return to low rates.

Every time the issue of housing affordability comes up on this site, the debate quickly moves to zoning and nimbys and such. In my view this is important to an extent (more so in some areas than others), and building more homes is always helpful, but it is not as significant as interest rates and the 'artificial' demand that is induced by speculation.

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

#173

Post by woleium »

bluGill wrote: post #50
nottorp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Most people in America can drive for 5 minutes for more beer. If you can't legally drive because of how drunk you are, then most stores won't sell you more beer. People might drive 30 minutes for beer, but that is about either price or selection, not availability. Though many cities have weird laws so some places you can't get beer at all in town, and that would push you to the 30 minute drive. But where I live many…

its not about driving for beer, its about not drinking warm beer

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

#174

Post by bouncing »

lxgr wrote: post #171
bouncing wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah, that's a good example. I haven't always had a laundry room in apartments I've rented in the US. When I haven't, there's been a shared machine room that all the tenants use with rows of machines. But most of the apartments I've rented in the US have had laundry rooms . Laundry rooms are, as far as I can tell, something that simply doesn't exist this side of the Atlantic. They put clothes washers in the kitc…

> vented tumble dryers are pretty uncommon Yeah, they're considered crimes against both delicate fabric and the environment :) Drying racks have the added benefit of humidifying apartments in winter, when the air often gets quite dry from heating. One peculiarity at least in Germany is that people move with their washing machines (as well as with their kitchens, very often). While I do miss my in-apartment washer a l…

Yeah, I get the energy savings with air-drying. And I've always air-dried certain items, too, because like you said, it's hard on fabric.

But right now, the humidity in Porto is 91%. A pair of jeans would smell bad before they finish air drying. Also, my 3 year old loves soup but hasn't really figured out how to hold a spoon without spilling. We do laundry so much because of that kid...

Maybe someone can enlighten me about how to do air dry all of my family's clothes. Clearly I'm missing something because I don't get it. If you lay out your clothes to dry on a rack, you have room for maybe half a load, so is a family just doing laundry every day?

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

#175

Post by bouncing »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #162
scythe wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I (American) had an apartment in Wuhan, the fridge was not particularly small and our 3-bedroom apartment didn't feel cramped. The beds were hard, but normal size. The bathroom was a little weird — no separation of the shower — but not particularly small. There was a laundry machine but no oven.

Ya, same in Beijing. The bathroom was also wet room, which is probably just an economy. The laundry machine was in the bathroom, my wife had to buy an external oven because she liked baking. But these were considered luxury by Chinese standards, older housing built before the 90s could get weird, like no hot water and instead you have a tank that needs to activated a half hour before your shower.

The "wet room" thing is in Korea too.

I've been told it's for easy cleaning. You just pull the sprayer off the shower and splash the whole room like you're at a car wash.

Having said that, the person who told me that was not Korean.

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

#176

Post by bluGill »

wolverine876 wrote: post #145
bluGill wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where you live is a compromise. Location has always been a big factor. If you need to live in NY then you need to pay NY rents. If you can move to New Jersey then your prices go down - by you have a longer commute. Different people come up with different answers to this compromise. Imagine you went to those people paying high rent for a small place and moved them to a small town in Montana, keeping the same pay. The…

That misstates the issue in two ways: > If you need to live in NY ... If you can move to New Jersey ... That assumes people live in NY because they must, and move to NJ if they can. IME, it's usually quite the opposite! But of course many do prefer - well, they'd prefer Westchester. :) > The cost of living makes it possible to own a large house in town near everything there is to do, so would they continue to live in…

> including midtown Manhatten. If someone could afford a nice ranch house with a yard there, they'd buy it! :)

That is the point: people are living in small places in NY not because they prefer small places, but because overall that is the best compromise for their current life situation. Change something about your life situation and the best compromise changes.

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

#177

Post by bluGill »

nottorp wrote: post #110
watwut wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cant legally drive when you had one small beer. You can legally buy beers or other alcohol when you already had one beer. If the store is not selling you alcohol due to intoxication, you should stop driving several drinks ago. I can get good selection of beers or other alcohol at reasonable price in the regular store within 5-10 min of walk anywhere in the city assuming it is not middle of the night.

Missing the point entirely, I see. The point is the europe apartment doesn't need survivalist style storage because it's close to stores. I could have said Mars bars or steaks but the OP post was about a beer fridge so I went along with it.

Once again, most in the US are only 5 minutes drive from a store. We still have that extra storage despite being that close.

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

#178

Post by lxgr »

bouncing wrote: post #174
lxgr wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vented tumble dryers are pretty uncommon Yeah, they're considered crimes against both delicate fabric and the environment :) Drying racks have the added benefit of humidifying apartments in winter, when the air often gets quite dry from heating. One peculiarity at least in Germany is that people move with their washing machines (as well as with their kitchens, very often). While I do miss my in-apartment washer a l…

Yeah, I get the energy savings with air-drying. And I've always air-dried certain items, too, because like you said, it's hard on fabric. But right now, the humidity in Porto is 91%. A pair of jeans would smell bad before they finish air drying. Also, my 3 year old loves soup but hasn't really figured out how to hold a spoon without spilling. We do laundry so much because of that kid... Maybe someone can enlighten me…

People usually have multiple dryers (I used to use 1-2 for a single machine load by myself)! And use clothespins, they let you hang stuff more tightly spaced.

But yeah, hang-drying in high humidity is rough. It really works best in winter with heating on, or in summer with the AC running (which also removes humidity) if there is one. Ventilation is key, too (cross drafts are great; a room can get saturated very quickly).

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

#179

Post by sillyfluke »

nottorp wrote: post #110
watwut wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cant legally drive when you had one small beer. You can legally buy beers or other alcohol when you already had one beer. If the store is not selling you alcohol due to intoxication, you should stop driving several drinks ago. I can get good selection of beers or other alcohol at reasonable price in the regular store within 5-10 min of walk anywhere in the city assuming it is not middle of the night.

Missing the point entirely, I see. The point is the europe apartment doesn't need survivalist style storage because it's close to stores. I could have said Mars bars or steaks but the OP post was about a beer fridge so I went along with it.

I was quietly chuckling as I was reading the discussion veer off toward the finer implications the legal limit for driving in the USA has on beer acquistion -- the original frame of reference of the example being so foreign to the commenters as to cause them to miss the intent of the example that was probably immediately obvious to most european residents.

A while back someone here made a great point about why Americans love to take vacations to European cities. It triggers a nostalgic wave in them bringing up warm feelings they had the last and possibly only time they lived in a community that they could explore and enjoy simply by walking and biking around. You know, that wonderful time when they lived....on a college campus.

The reason why there is little room for storage in the those tiny european apartments is the same reason you didn't have a huge fridge in your dorm room in college.

And in many of those places you can walk around with a beer in your hand in public. Yes, that's right -- just like college.

Outside college, car culture in the US encourages stocking up habits which in turn encourages the search for more storage space.

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

#180

Post by tempsy »

scoofy wrote: post #157
tempsy wrote: post #44

America is mostly suburban by choice. Most people do not want to live in an apartment or condo long term if they plan on raising or have a family if they live basically anywhere that isn’t NYC. I find the YIMBY assumption that everyone wishes every city and town was more NYC to just be untrue. People just want detached houses to be cheaper. Most aren’t dreaming about affording a 3 or 4 bed apartment.

>America is mostly suburban by choice. America is mostly suburban not by choice but because suburbanites voted to make it illegal for their neighbors to incrementally increase density. The entire argument is so fucked up in America because the nimbys keep framing it as fucking high-rise condos vs single-family homes... when throughout most of history, the obvious solution for housing shortages was just converting som…

I’m saying most people given a choice between buying a house with a yard and buying a condo in the same city would choose the detached house.

The main argument for choosing a condo is cost, but outside the most expensive coastal areas like NYC or LA a house is not so prohibitively expensive that it makes a lot of sense to buy an apartment instead.

Also cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen people even in a place like San Francisco complain about condo HOA fees which can be close to $1000 a month. Many people don’t want to pay those.

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