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The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

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Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#241

Post by loandbehold »

notch656c wrote: post #147
loandbehold wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong. For instance in Southern California the cost to build new house is around $350 per sqft. Building 2000 sqft house is around $700K. House like that may sell for around 1 million. So that would be 70% construction and 30% land.

How does that happen? For 700k I could hire 2 skilled persons and 5 undocumented immigrants to work an entire year. How long does it take to raise a house?

It's not just manual labor. You need an architect, structural engineer. Getting all permits, environmental analysis. A lot of expensive "knowledge workers" involved. Then there are materials, rental of construction equipment, insurance. Developers who build large number of row houses at the same time can get costs down through economies of scale.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#242

Post by parineum »

Dig1t wrote: post #118

Speaking specifically about the construction industry in California, because I am very familiar with that topic: Labor is less skilled, because of huge supply of undocumented workers. Also building codes and requirements for building safety have increased tremendously. Building a house in CA is WAY more complex than it used to be, since there have been so many requirements added to building codes over the years. Argu…

> Arguably CA houses are better built than they used to be

This is inarguable. The aftermath of the major earthquakes of the past have had an very noticeable effect on building safety and the effect on damage done has been measurable. I can't imagine there aren't similar trends in other places for their own local natural disasters.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#243

Post by pixl97 »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #206
pixl97 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vinyl windows/sealed windows are 400% better. Old windows suck. Cedar shakes are a fire hazard, and most people use cement board rather than vinyl. You can't have everyone use virgin forest wood. And with that said especially in non load bearing walls why use your best wood, it's just a waste. You get far more strength by use of modern fastners and straps.

> Vinyl windows/sealed windows are 400% better Until the sun or termite-treating the home degrades the vinyl.

I guess I'll worry about that in 20+ years.

I'll also assume you've never pulled the putty out of the old windows and had to redo them, because it is a lot of work.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#244

Post by vlunkr »

Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote: post #139
Kukumber wrote: post #23

The pay and the working conditions are miserable, plus the society doesn't value hard work anymore

Because of the open southern border allowing low cost labor to flood your market.

I don't know what you're talking about, we built a wall and Mexico paid for it, remember?

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#245

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

NTARelix wrote: post #205
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wild is that the entire concept, as we know it, of “undocumented workers” only existed for the past ~22 years.

I have memories of illegal immigrant workers from longer than 22 years ago and the USA has had immigration laws for much longer than 22 years. Have I misunderstood your statement?

I think you missed the “as we know it now” part.

How did the US southern border work in your memories? Would you be surprised to learn it was almost unrecognizable compared to what it is now?

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#246

Post by bobkazamakis »

runnerup wrote: post #194
eagleinparadise wrote: post #115

CRE guy here. A lot of this "productivity loss" is also due to government related staffing issues and bureaucracy. Most people are describing more complex building codes, so I'll add something new. I had a project that was delayed by over a year during Covid because the city approved incorrect plans, came back and requested revisions, and then lost the physical plans (without us knowing until we checked in asking wha…

> made the required rent higher If, all along, you could have rented it out for more money ... why were you planning to rent it out for less money? I get that you wouldn't have to, but it appears that the "market rate rent" was higher than you initially anticipated. As a corollary, assuming that you had initially planned on the highest rent that the market would bear...it seems that after a year of unexpected delays…

They want all risk to be put on external factors, that way their business can make profit without any - a tale as old as time.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#247

Post by phlipski »

notch656c wrote: post #199
toast0 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bare minimum is a lot more than it used to be. My parents' house was built with zero attic insulation, and I believe no wall insulation either. Just framed, drywalled insided and stucco outside. I can't imagine there's any fire blocks between studs either.

Upping the codes to require new construction to have those things, while not razing your parents' house, shows it's all about the pyramid scheme and not about actual safety. If it were about actual safety and such things are considered unsafe then unsafe houses like your parents home should be bulldozed for the good of the people.

By your logic every single house in Florida (and those along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts that are in the path of possible hurricanes) that was built prior to 2002 (the year the building codes were changed in direct response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992) needs to be razed. I'm not sure that's really politically feasible...

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#248

Post by seanmcdirmid »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #129
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Affordable housing is just a zoning issue. The cost of construction is a tiny fraction of the cost of a new house in major metros. No it is not. Construction costs (material, labor) are sky high even if property costs are as well. Building high-end housing has always been more profitable than otherwise, low-end housing is simply high-end housing 20 or 30 years in the future.

low-end housing is simply high-end housing 20 or 30 years in the future That was maybe true in the past, but todays exurban sheetrock palaces are impossible to be turned into low-income/entry-level housing. It starts with the zoning requirements - are you really going to divide a 2500 sqft McMansion into a duplex without an epic zoning fight? And then there's the transportation/parking issue. The real problem is that…

> are you really going to divide a 2500 sqft McMansion into a duplex without an epic zoning fight? And then there's the transportation/parking issue.

Even in cities with little zoning requirements (like Houston, and heck, even Tokyo), you still see McMansions being built rather than low income housing. Low income housing is still old housing from the 80s/70s, and the problem you are referring to (that housing built today is not very convertible) is one for a sadder future.

> The real problem is that 1200 sqft entry level housing like it was built in the decade after WW2 isn't made any longer but is urgently needed.

Having shopped for homes in the last few years, there were plenty of 1200 SQFT options in the places I looked at, they were just $700-$800k rather than $900k-$1.1m. Condos are the more realistic options in that case (I saw one I liked for $700k with a reasonable HOA, my wife wasn't having it, however). She preferred a 900 SQF SFH over that, for reasons I couldn't figure out. All were still considered luxury however since they were almost brand new.

Note that yes, I live in an expensive area, but usually when we talk about affordable housing, we are talking about places where people want to live (vs. say Detroit).

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#249

Post by hindsightbias »

fortylove wrote: post #93
hindsightbias wrote: post #2

> number of houses or total square footage built per employee Average house size has probably doubled in the last 50 years. Nail guns can't make up for building code and higher finish work demands. It's not uncommon to see 6 or 7 layers in sheathing today.

>6 or 7 layers in sheathing today. What do you mean by this?

https://www.finehomebuilding.com/project-guides/insulation/c...

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#250

Post by mindslight »

HEmanZ wrote: post #121
thereddaikon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordable housing has little to do with the cost of building the house.

In Manhattan or San Francisco? Probably not. But in most of the gigantic, sprawling USA, I suspect affordable housing absolutely has everything to do with cost of building a house.

Go tour some unincorporated land in the Southwest and you'll see how cheaply homes can be built. The problem is that once you're spread out enough to be able to do that, the resources required for daily living have gone up significantly because they're no longer amortized over population density and time. And surburbs/ruralish areas are just in the middle of that gradient.

Building a bunch of housing in the middle of nowhere for unhoused people isn't going to work unless you also provide them heating, utilities, transportation, etc. The least expensive way of doing that is to make it dense like a city. At which point you're just building a planned city for indigent people, which is not particularly in the purview of the US on a few axes.

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