I'm just arguing anecdote against anecdote at this point, but I question the frequency of this, mostly because it's so absurdly expensive to tear down a house t

I'm just arguing anecdote against anecdote at this point, but I question the frequency of this, mostly because it's so absurdly expensive to tear down a house to rebuild (because you have to buy the house before you tear it down). In my experience, I see houses torn down to rebuild only to increase density (two homes replace one) or to replace with a fundamentally different type of house (3500 sq ft house replaces a 1200sq ft house, modern energy-efficient house replaces unmaintained home on the verge of falling down). The value gap between the new home(s) and old home has to be very large to justify a teardown. To the extent that teardowns are more common in the US than the UK, I imagine it's driven mostly by the ability to massively upgrade in the process. If you live in a 150-year-old stone house in the UK that's been updated over the years so that it's got modern electrical and plumbing and already maxes out your square footage (meterage?), what would you gain by tearing down except a lot more debt and some better insulation? With that said, I think this math generally doesn't work out for Americans, either, who generally trade up homes rather than rebuild.