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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Icelander here, I'm more concerned how well does this house work in icelandic conditions? Does it handle earthquakes well? What about regular storms? Being wet for months end? Constant freezing and thawing? Can you put it in an active volcano? Does if float on magma? There are lot of questions here!
Does it float on magma? Do houses in Iceland really do that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
6k = 12 working days for a builder skilled enough to do everything from working an excavator to hooking up hvac. So they're claiming a house that can be build in 12 day, by a single person, ready to move in? Clickbait.
Prefab houses can be built in a single day. In fact in china they built a prefab skyscraper in 15 days.
Building a 60 m2 wooden shack have always been cheap compared to a proper house.
Much of the cost of a house lies in the cost of land and the cost of connecting it to water and electricity.
These costs are high because of scarcity and the policies of cities. Policies that ensures that values of houses do not fall and people do not go under water in debt, that areas are filled with proper gentry, that there are nice open spaces, nature, farmland etc.
Even if you could build a house for 0 dollars many places would still have an affordability issue.
> How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford Why not rent a flat instead? Wouldn't that be much more economical (no property prices, lower heating costs, less maintenance work, less risk, not built on the cheap)? I don't understand the fixation on owning a house / living in a single-family house many americans seem to have.
One facet of it is cultural: For a lot of people, someone isn't seen as a "real adult" until he or she owns a residence. (Obligatory "if you have a mortgage you're just renting from the bank and have to fix the water heater yourself" line here.) Another is financial: There are heavy tax incentives towards ownership, though this is lessened in the era of cheap money. (On the other hand, if a mortgage can be had for ch…
This sort of thing happens when you don't have a contract that enumerates what happens if either party wants out.
> How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford Why not rent a flat instead? Wouldn't that be much more economical (no property prices, lower heating costs, less maintenance work, less risk, not built on the cheap)? I don't understand the fixation on owning a house / living in a single-family house many americans seem to have.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prefab houses can be built in a single day. In fact in china they built a prefab skyscraper in 15 days.
Including plumbing, flooring, electricity, hooking up utilities etc. ? Please cite your sources because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
It's been discussed on HN half a dozen times. "Extraordinary claims" is a context-dependent idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prefab houses can be built in a single day. In fact in china they built a prefab skyscraper in 15 days.
Including plumbing, flooring, electricity, hooking up utilities etc. ? Please cite your sources because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Probably nice for the US, but in much of the rest of the world, it is the price of land which dominate the price. Any system that aims to reduce house prices really need to deal with limited supply of land to build on. Even on Iceland which has vast amounts of space and tiny population, house prices are high because the areas where people want to live is in high demand. Now if you could just build your house at any a…
Icelander here, I'm more concerned how well does this house work in icelandic conditions? Does it handle earthquakes well? What about regular storms? Being wet for months end? Constant freezing and thawing? Can you put it in an active volcano? Does if float on magma? There are lot of questions here!
Anyway, it doesn't look like this house would fit the required amount of isolation.