Building your own housing usually means living either in the middle of nowhere or at the sprawling edge of suburbia. None of the places I would want to live hav

Building your own housing usually means living either in the middle of nowhere or at the sprawling edge of suburbia. None of the places I would want to live have much, if any, empty developable land. So that would mean a tear down and rebuild of an existing house, which is a lot more expensive than just buying an existing house. Also, relatively modern building codes and zoning rules like setback requirements put new construction at a disadvantage compared to existing housing.