3 ms·

I love the designs that Dwell highlights, but the price ($720/sqft) is eye watering. It's the opposite of the spirit of the pretty nice and low cost furniture

by danans 4y ago

I love the designs that Dwell highlights, but the price ($720/sqft) is eye watering. It's the opposite of the spirit of the pretty nice and low cost furniture they did with Target some years ago: https://corporate.target.com/article/2016/10/modern-by-dwell https://corporate.target.com/article/2016/10/modern-by-dwell For reference, I completed a custom full house rebuild about a year ago in the insanely pricey Bay Area construction market, built to an equivalent high-end design and construction quality as this, and construction costs were still $450/sqft. I brought the $ cost down even a bit further with sweat equity.

bombcar 4y ago
To be fair to them, $ per sq ft is not the best comparison unless you factor for square feet - a 560 sf ft house is much more "dense" than a 2,000 sq ft house, and much of the extra sq footage is pretty cheap. For example, expanding a living room ten feet deeper to add 100 sq ft is the cost of additional foundation, roofing, and flooring and a bit of electrical/heat/cooling load; the cost of an additional bathroom might be much more for the same square footage.
- danans 4y ago
  > a 560 sf ft house is much more "dense" than a 2,000 sq ft house I agree with you totally on the principle behind that, but a very higher end tiny house is still usually only $300/sf. I think that this ADU is priced for someone looking for nearly instant gratification with high-end-design and materials for a second dwelling on land they already own - which is what the marketing photos depict - and not for someone in the market for a primary residence. The customer for this isn't like most of us who seek to value-maximize their housing, but rather someone for whom the cost of this thing is pretty marginal compared to their overall wealth. That is a very niche market, definitely far narrower than Dwell's subscriber base. Furthermore, at what is likely at least 50% profit margin on these, they don't have to sell many to do quite well, as long as they can deliver a very high quality product on time with minimal hassle to their well heeled customers.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Yeah, this is a product to be sold to people who weren't even considering it at all, not for people who say "I want to add an ADU, how can I do it?".

by danans 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago

To be fair to them, $ per sq ft is not the best comparison unless you factor for square feet - a 560 sf ft house is much more "dense" than a 2,000 sq ft house, and much of the extra sq footage is pretty cheap. For example, expanding a living room ten feet deeper to add 100 sq ft is the cost of additional foundation, roofing, and flooring and a bit of electrical/heat/cooling load; the cost of an additional bathroom might be much more for the same square footage.

danans 4y ago
> a 560 sf ft house is much more "dense" than a 2,000 sq ft house I agree with you totally on the principle behind that, but a very higher end tiny house is still usually only $300/sf. I think that this ADU is priced for someone looking for nearly instant gratification with high-end-design and materials for a second dwelling on land they already own - which is what the marketing photos depict - and not for someone in the market for a primary residence. The customer for this isn't like most of us who seek to value-maximize their housing, but rather someone for whom the cost of this thing is pretty marginal compared to their overall wealth. That is a very niche market, definitely far narrower than Dwell's subscriber base. Furthermore, at what is likely at least 50% profit margin on these, they don't have to sell many to do quite well, as long as they can deliver a very high quality product on time with minimal hassle to their well heeled customers.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yeah, this is a product to be sold to people who weren't even considering it at all, not for people who say "I want to add an ADU, how can I do it?".