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Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

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Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#181

Post by mhuffman »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #165
rybosworld wrote: post #57

Every single major population center that has distorted (high) housing costs relative to income, also has very strong protections for the existing home owners (NIMBY). "There are no coincidences..." The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like it, they can move. This will probably never happen in the U.S., because the government no longer fu…

>If they don't like it, they can move. Can't you say the same for people trying to move in? There's plenty of places in the US that you can still get a house for under 200k.

>There's plenty of places in the US that you can still get a house for under 200k.

I bought 3 houses all for under $20k each over the past 2 years. I use them all as rental houses. You can get waaay under $200k. The problem when you bring this up to people online is they say, "well I would never want to live there". So they are very happy to tell people that already live somewhere that they can move if they don't want new large housing complexes built, but if you tell them that they can move to somewhere more affordable, they act like you are attacking their human rights.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#182

Post by pksebben »

giantg2 wrote: post #16

Of course timber won't fix the housing shortage. The housing shortage is artificial. There are plenty of empty units across the country. It's a distribution issue of: owners holding vacant units, people wanting/needing to live in specific locations, and individual preferences for bigger, fancier, better school, sfh, etc attributes. With an almost stagnate population growth this isn't really a building issue even if i…

I would love to see a "landlord tax" that squeezes owners to either live in, rent out, or sell.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#183

Post by ska »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #160
tptacek wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upzoning is a win-win for existing homeowners. Land doesn't get expropriated to build multifamily; it's purchased. Multifamily is a more efficient use of a lot than SFH, so it's purchased at a premium. NIMBYs worry that the mere existence of nearby multifamily will decrease their home value. In rare and unsympathetic cases (places like Winnetka in Illinois) that may be true. But in the bedroom neighborhoods of big ci…

> NIMBYs worry that the mere existence of nearby multifamily will decrease their home value. In rare and unsympathetic cases ... that may be true. It's not rare. I've known multiple people, myself included, who have decided not to make an offer on a single family home because it neighbors a gross apartment building. The vast majority of home buyers want single family homes . I don't know where HN obsession with verti…

Conversely, I know several couples who have gone back, especially after child rearing.

What people want is far more complicated that "single family homes", but a range of preferences. Most prefer a detached home from any thing non-detached. Most prefer access to good schools (while/if they have school age children) opposed to poor schools. Most prefer being close to work over a long commute. Most prefer easy access to cultural/social aspects of a city over not having access. Etc. etc.

Every buying choice is a set of tradeoffs unless you are almost unfathomably wealthy (20m detached home in a dense city with a helicopter pad ticks a lot of boxes). I think a lot of focus not so much on "vertical housing" but density and "missing middle" housing is just the fact that current (US, anyway) city design is hitting some walls, and "more of the same" isn't going to work.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#184

Post by tempsy »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #166
tempsy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and I’m saying that there’s plenty of available high density apartment complexes in cities with a shortage of detached homes, yet people still want a home for a dozen reasons. America is not a country where people want to live in an apartment long term if they have the resources to buy a proper home.

> America is not a country where people want to live in an apartment long term if they have the resources to buy a proper home. You are projecting your personal preferences on the American population. Some of the highest occupancy apartment buildings in my area are full of people who can afford to buy a house anywhere they want to yet clearly choose otherwise. Apartment living has significant advantages that don't di…

“several people” is not the majority

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#185

Post by CrazyStat »

xyzelement wrote: post #123
CrazyStat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s generally not room to build the desired number of detached single family homes (with desirable lot sizes) in desirable cities and suburbs. Which is why you end up with exurbs and hour long commutes. We need to build higher density housing in the desirable areas, which is often disallowed by zoning.

I think you're operating on maybe 5+ year old thinking on this problem. Post-COVID, the "exurbs with hour long commutes" have become significantly more desirable, as people have gone fully or partially remote. The "penalty" of the long commute has gone down while the benefits of space, affordability, and community type have gone up. The world is obviously figuring out the Return to Office thing but overall the commut…

The number of people working remote is still fairly small compared to the overall workforce. Many jobs simply don’t allow for it. If you’re in tech you’re probably overestimating how big this shift has been.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#186

Post by ilamont »

I am building a house in a rural area, where land is cheap. Building is not.

Timber is certainly expensive, but you know what else costs a lot? All the other stuff, much of it subject to state building codes that get more restrictive every year.

Asbestos survey, assessment, abatement: $10k

Asbestos air monitoring: $1k

Tipping fees: 20k

Spray foam insulation: $27k

Foundation $50k

Solar: 40k (not including rebates/incentives)

Requirements for outlets. Requirements for windows. Setbacks from a utility pole on our property, 50 yards/meters from the nearest road. We have to deal with that mess and pay extra to site the foundation, not National Grid!

Even if we were getting a manufactured home (built to looser FEMA standards) we would still have to deal with some of these costs, such as asbestos, tipping fees and foundation. And the cheapest double wide is $300k.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#187

Post by sydbarrett74 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #143
sydbarrett74 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada and the UK have woeful housing shortages. They're not doing much, if any, better than the US is.

I'd guess that is the point of the comment. In the US we can blame zoning, NIMBYs, and car-centric society for housing problems. But what about those other countries? What's the reason there? I suspect important drivers of home pricing are: - Young people not getting married and starting a family right out of school, making average household size drop considerably - Increased standards for construction and rental qua…

Another thing to add is that Boomers would rather age in place than be shipped off to a nursing home until they require extensive care hard to administer in a non-hospital setting. There's nothing wrong with that sentiment, but it does somewhat restrict the housing inventory that otherwise would be freed when they downsize or move into a facility.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#188

Post by jghn »

ilamont wrote: post #186

I am building a house in a rural area, where land is cheap. Building is not. Timber is certainly expensive, but you know what else costs a lot? All the other stuff, much of it subject to state building codes that get more restrictive every year. Asbestos survey, assessment, abatement: $10k Asbestos air monitoring: $1k Tipping fees: 20k Spray foam insulation: $27k Foundation $50k Solar: 40k (not including rebates/ince…

> Tipping fees

What is a tipping fee

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#189

Post by vondur »

zdragnar wrote: post #169
rybosworld wrote: post #57

Every single major population center that has distorted (high) housing costs relative to income, also has very strong protections for the existing home owners (NIMBY). "There are no coincidences..." The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like it, they can move. This will probably never happen in the U.S., because the government no longer fu…

> If they don't like it, they can move. Why doesn't the same logic apply to people who don't like the high prices of housing in some areas? There's plenty of affordable housing in the country, but it doesn't all exist in the places people want to live.

Exactly this. We should be giving people incentives to move the Midwest where there is affordable housing. Not everyone can live on the coasts. Here in California, the infrastructure has not kept up with the population increases. As a result, houses are being built in areas that were previously wilderness and now we have fires burning through entire towns.
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