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

construction-physics.com

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

#71

Post by tempsy »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #46
tempsy wrote: post #22

There's a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs. If you just want to rent an apartment there's an oversupply from overbuilding during the pandemic.

There is absolutely not an oversupply of apartments in my city, nor in Seattle proper. it should be non-controversial to let the market supply as many apartments in the locations people want to be as people are willing to rent. Especially any regulatory changes that enable family sized apartments to be built at relatively lower cost should be encouraged. Even if there were an “oversupply”, if someone could build new…

How is there not an oversupply of rentals in Seattle? I pulled up Zillow Rentals around downtown and there's a comical number of listings available.

If you can rent a new construction 1 bed for under $2k a month in a jobs center there is no apartment shortage in your city.

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

#72

Post by cpursley »

davidw wrote: post #45
cpursley wrote: post #12

To solve the housing crisis you have to build up like the Soviets and Chinese have. They housed a lot of people, quickly. It’s really not difficult; just takes some brave people to change the zoning laws and rethink some of the building codes combined with financing it.

You don't even have to do that - a lot of 3/4/5 story style flats (can be owned or rented) that are not concrete soviet blocks would do wonders in most cities. See: western Europe.

Yep, Denmark and the Netherlands especially get this right.

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

#73

Post by hinkley »

croes wrote: post #39

How about converting offices to apartments? Thanks to home office there should be many otherwise useless offices.

We’ve heard from people in construction that this is often a tear down situation. The needs of office space and apartments are very different. Somehow they see this as different from the old warehouse-loft conversion process.

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

#74

Post by davidw »

cpursley wrote: post #72
davidw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to do that - a lot of 3/4/5 story style flats (can be owned or rented) that are not concrete soviet blocks would do wonders in most cities. See: western Europe.

Yep, Denmark and the Netherlands especially get this right.

It's pretty standard in most places outside of the odd tower block here and there.

That kind of housing goes back at least as far as the Roman insulae, which you can still see in places like Ostia Antica.

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

#75

Post by bobthepanda »

foofie wrote: post #63
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…

> The solution is terrifyingly simple: don't allow existing residents to block new housing developments. If they don't like it, they can move. I think that most jurisdictions already have the legal tools they need to put the public good in front of special interest groups, in the form of eminent domain laws. It's just that the policial will is just not there.

Eminent domain is not cheap to use given the fair market value compensation and the almost guaranteed legal fights.

Really this is a case where states should pre-empt localities.

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

#76

Post by tempsy »

marssaxman wrote: post #54
tempsy wrote: post #22

There's a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs. If you just want to rent an apartment there's an oversupply from overbuilding during the pandemic.

There will always be a shortage of detached single family homes in desirable cities and suburbs, because that style of housing takes up a great deal of land. The only way out is up.

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.

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

#77

Post by bobthepanda »

adam_arthur wrote: post #28
throwitaway222 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that happens, just raise prop taxes to 100k per year (for rental units).

Raising property taxes on rentals increases cost to renters. Raising taxes on vacant units is a good idea though (but perhaps hard to enforce). Remote work is solving the housing shortage already though, through opening up living to much wider geography (and locales that don't impede building, such as TX and FL). It will just take a decade or so to normalize. In-person work forced people to compete over limited housi…

I would say it is doing the opposite of solving the housing shortage right now. It is exporting it instead while also not doing much about the shortage at its origins.

All those cute picturesque towns in the Mountain West don’t have a large supply of homes to begin with, so it only takes a few wealthy Californians to seriously upend the local market with wages paid much higher than what locals can get for their skills.

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

#78

Post by tnel77 »

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…

A major issue with housing is that it is a primary driver of wealth for many Americans. Obviously, this comes at the expense of our fellow Americans who do not own a home. I was able to buy shortly out of college (1% down loan) so rising home prices don’t impact me as much since my home has also gone up in value. I was able to sell the first house and roll that equity into the next house.

As long as it’s the main store of wealth for your average citizen, there will be very little incentive to change that.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by Spivak »

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…

> the government no longer functions as intended.

On the other hand it seems like it's functioning exactly as intended. The interests of the people who live in and who elect the city council are being represented just as they should be.

The argument could equally be if you don't like it, build somewhere else.

Do you believe communities have any right to self-determination? I would feel a bit peeved if I and all my neighbors built this nice neighborhood and then am told too bad people really like your neighborhood so we're letting Alliance Residential buy up a bunch of property for a huge apartment complex. The neighborhood I grew up in is going through this. They were a bunch of lower-middle class people who bought houses in a "rough" area because it's what they could afford, made it nice and then developers saw dollar signs. They don't have the kind of pull to keep them out so it's about to get steamrolled with gentrification.

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