Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

thewalrus.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 107 posts

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#71

Post by Pet_Ant »

anovikov wrote: post #59
Pet_Ant wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those come from the savings from not having to maintain as much less power grids, less roads to maintain, less roads to plow, less helicopter ambulance rides to pick up injured remote people. Sure you need more city busses now. Giving the "undesirables" a decent place and means to live reduces crime.

Don't you think that in general, the drive to push as many people as possible into places as tight as possible, like high density urban areas, is abnormal? People by nature love to enjoy space, and this is what U.S. has in abundance. Work on making geographic location less important, on decreasing the value of being in a particular place. Embrace remote work. It will solve the "housing crisis". Forcing millions of ad…

Do you think dorms are less ugly than suburban sprawl or endless exapanse of ranches? I mean how many places in the US can you find a 5mi x 5mi square of land unmolested?

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#72

Post by [deleted] »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #36
sesuximo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could stop putting everyone’s jobs in the same 10 towns and use a bit more space

When Obama asked Steve Jobs about those manufacturing jobs coming back to the US Jobs said it ain't gonna happen. The benefits of centralizing and critical mass are just too important. Being able to lunch with people and get into the same space to innovate, to read body language. It's to big of an advantage. Just like independent rural homestead living collapsed into small town and cities, small towns are cities are…

[deleted]

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#73

Post by briancp »

I work as a structural engineer and write a newsletter about, among other things, technology for lowering construction costs.

A tiny house will be cheaper than conventional housing by virtue of being a lot smaller (building costs are usually expressed per square foot or square meter). But as the article points out, these are usually built with fairly high end finishes (wood paneling, granite counters, etc) - their cost per unit area is actually somewhat high. Actual low-cost construction, like the sort used on mobile homes, eliminates most of these expensive finishes, because they’re a major cost driver.

And in the US at least, a house not permanently attached to land has to be financed as property, like a car, rather than real estate, which means the tiny houses attached to trailers will be financed at a much higher interest rate than a traditional mortgage.

Generally I think these are more of a niche lifestyle product, a mobile home for people who don’t want to buy a mobile home, more than any sort of affordable housing solution.

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#74

Post by dghlsakjg »

dirtyid wrote: post #63
bryanlarsen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States, a common refrain is that the housing crisis is caused by a failure to build, in particular a failure to build up. That failure to build is usually blamed on regulation. That's a harder argument to make in Toronto. Toronto is a sea of construction cranes, almost all building apartment or condo towers, and it has been like this for at least a decade. Toronto has a third of all construction cranes…

>Toronto has a third of all construction cranes in North America Toronto can have all the cranes in the world and it won't really matter because construction industry cannot keep up. I think the city(not GTA) has grown 500k in the past 20 years (2.5M -> 3M), condo units only increased 200k (100k -> 300k), other new housing marginal. The fundamental problem isn't even that there's too much demand, but the west are inc…

Chinese building practices assume a certain disposability that we haven't accepted in Canada. Apartment buildings are built with an assumed lifespan of around 30 years.

I have no idea if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

That kind of throwaway mentality for housing might seem crazy, but keep in mind that housing is one of the only goods that we expect to last for a lifetime in the west.

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#75

Post by dirtyid »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #66
dirtyid wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Toronto has a third of all construction cranes in North America Toronto can have all the cranes in the world and it won't really matter because construction industry cannot keep up. I think the city(not GTA) has grown 500k in the past 20 years (2.5M -> 3M), condo units only increased 200k (100k -> 300k), other new housing marginal. The fundamental problem isn't even that there's too much demand, but the west are inc…

Questionable proposition considering the suburban GTA has grown an insane amount as well, even with greenbelting in place.

Growth is relative, my friend from Mississauga grew up around farms now surrounded by suburbs, but from 80s-20s , dwellings "only" increased from 120k to 240k. Population 350k to 650k.

Building 120k dwellings in 40 years / 3000 per year is pathetic. Export some Chinese construction over capacity. The residential district I lived in China housed 80,000 (condos). It was built in less than 5 years, every unit was larger and nicer than Toronto new constructions.

Regulations, NIMBYims plays a part, but at western construction also simply isn't competitive enough to address changes in immigration patterns.

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#76

Post by dghlsakjg »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #69
dghlsakjg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a recent immigrant to Canada it sort of terrifies me how irrational the market is. That said, I'm buying a house. I moved from Seattle and it is utterly bizarre to me that housing in Vancouver is more expensive than Seattle, while also offering significantly lower pay. My hot take is that most of the rulemakers (politicians), are property owners, and are unwilling to take the drastic steps needed to put the brakes…

On the supply front, both Toronto and Vancouver have densified _significantly_ over the last 10-20 years, with condo construction in Vancouver completely off the charts. It seems to have done little to alleviate issues. Immigration combined with net migration into the city is a big part of it, I guess. But I am not convinced this is entirely an issue of supply constraints, as high pricing is no longer confined to the…

There are a lot of issues, and densification is certainly happening in the downtown cores, but I don't believe it is enough to keep up with the demands put on it by population increases. More anecdata: I live walking distance to Downtown Vancouver, and within a block of 4 bus routes. There is an empty lot next to me that has been in the permitting process for more than two years for a lowrise mixed-use building. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost imposed by the permitting process is close to $1mm when you factor in interest, salaries to hire the people who know people at city hall, the cost of the actual permits, etc.

Other things that factor heavily are cheap money (interest rates are lower than inflation on mortgages right now, around 1.7%), cultural normalization (buying a home for 10x your yearly income is considered normal), lack of opportunity outside of cities.

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#77

Post by Overtonwindow »

I lived in a Tiny House in Florida while I was on contract work. The rent was free and came with the job, and at first it was pretty cool, but then it quickly was not. The main issue is that to live and work with any level of efficiency requires you pal everything. Vacuum? Need a plan. Cooking dinner, need a plan. It’s like trying to find a charger for a Tesla Roadster in the first few years - everything required careful planning. After the contract, I moved into a hotel and it was instantly better.

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#78

Post by alex_anglin »

corey_moncure wrote: post #17
alex_anglin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One important difference to note in your Japan comparison is that Japan is experiencing population decline, which would explain weak demand and decreasing prices. Home ownership as an investment in North America has been driven by demand exceeding supply, among other factors, which make a difference from an investment perspective.

This is incorrect. Many of the factors that make the Japan real estate market what it is are codified into law. Furthermore the qualities attested to by the grandparent post are invariant with the current demographic trends, and have existed for a very long time. Long story short, Japan real estate is weird and unique, not a good subject for off the cuff generalizations.

I would agree with you that real estate is inherently local, with a myriad factors to consider. I would also agree with you about the limitations of generalizations. However, in a conversation about the price of housing, discussing supply and demand seems like a good place to start.

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#79

Post by leppr »

ghaff wrote: post #14
leoedin wrote: post #9

The idea that tiny homes are the solution to the housing crisis ignores the fact that the housing crisis is really a land-in-desirable-places crisis, and a result of a natural pyramid scheme which has emerged due to population growth and increasing popularity of cities (amplified by low interest rates). Tiny houses don't fix that problem.

One of the things with both tiny houses and micro-apartments--leaving aside precise definitions--is that by the time you account for some minimal set of amenities such as bathroom, a kitchenette even, corridors/stairwell in the case of apartments, etc. cutting space to the bone doesn't really save you all that much in absolute terms while forcing a lot of compromises.

Indeed. The only thing the current "tiny house" concept is a solution to is bad building laws. Clever design and engineering allow people to live in an alternative way that lawmakers forgot to outlaw, but there's nothing ideal in the tiny trailer dimensions.

If we want to get an idea of a minimal humane living space, look at the cheap houses people build for themselves in countries without oppressive real-estate investment protection laws. They are rarely as small, or rely heavily on outdoor/shared spaces.

Re: Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

#80

Post by silverpepsi »

mettamage wrote: post #10
greggman3 wrote: post #5

I don't have a clue what any solution looks like or even what problem is trying to be solved. Growing up in the USA home "ownership" is always touted as an investment but for example in Japan, it's often more like buying a car. The moment you buy it it's a used house and the price goes down just like a car would. The point being home ownership is viewed differently. Also, the recent episode of the Flash Forward podca…

Wait, so does that mean it's relatively cheap to rent or buy in Japan? I know Japan is not a cheap country, but I was wondering relative to other Western countries. I might want to research if I'd want to live in Japan for a couple of years then, and simply become a remote worker.

no it means that the fortune you pay is almost all for the land and the house is thought of as disposable
Post reply on HN