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So in those 7 decades there has been build 175 million houses. Population of usa is around 350 million. Most people probsbly also not living alone and some hous

• irrational 4y ago
  How many of those homes are second/third homes? There are a lot of old abandoned homes. I would never live in a home built before 1978. Almost certainly that home is full of lead-based paint and asbestos.
  • ghaff 4y ago
    Eh. I live in a house built in the 1820s. Older houses are pretty common in New England. So what so long as things are covered up.
  • KerrAvon 4y ago
    You don’t have a choice in some areas, like the south SF bay (unless you are a multimillionaire). The sources of asbestos are well known and they can be removed cleanly and safely, and lead paint should have been painted over by now with more than a few coats of modern paint — which you can safely touch and lick, if you like.
    • cool_dude85 4y ago
      Just remember to explain to your 2-year-old not to put any of the chips or flakes in their mouth and it's all good.
      • BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
        Presumably you’d baby proof your home and would address any spots where the paint is flaking or chipping off the wall. Especially if you knew it was an older home. Honestly unless the lead paint is the topmost layer, or they put so many coats of regular paint on that it’s falling off the wall, the actual risk of a toddler encountering and then consuming the paint chips is shockingly low.
    • irrational 4y ago
      You never remodel or have to repair holes in the walls of your home? In my experience, we would have lead based paint particles floating all around the house from all the projects and fixes we do.
  • poulsbohemian 4y ago
    >I would never live in a home built before 1978. Almost certainly that home is full of lead-based paint and asbestos. We're closing in on 50 years past the 1979 lead-based paint cutoff - the vast majority of homes in my area, and I extrapolate that likely most areas, have been remediated. With asbestos - probably the worst issue in my area is that if you have asbestos shingles you want to remove they are stinking heavy and so cost a lot to dump. I live in a 1915 home that is a great example of houses in my area - has gone through multiple renovations in that time such that the guts are fundamentally new. Probably the biggest issue with these older homes is insulation, as unless you truly take them down to the studs, they are never going to be as airtight as modern homes.
• CydeWeys 4y ago
  You're making too many assumptions from such broad data. No, houses don't generally fall apart within 50 years. But most houses built 50+ years ago are small by modern standards, and many have been torn down and redeveloped since then. For the ultimate peek into this phenomenon look at Tokyo, where the lifespan of a house is short and any given plot of land is rebuilt several times per century.
  • crooked-v 4y ago
    Also, of course, one should keep in mind demographic shifts. There are many small towns (and even some city suburbs) with cheap empty houses that many people would never willingly occupy because there are no jobs there.
    • godzillabrennus 4y ago
      Also areas like East Cleveland that have a notorious reputation. Even if in that particular case the city was built by John D. Rockefeller, he is even buried there.
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      • notch898a 4y ago
        Ah yes, East Cleveland. One night I was biking home, one of the locals took note of my weakened position with a flat tire and that my skin color denoted I was not from the neighborhood, and they put a gun to my head. If you buy there, I recommend availing yourself of Ohio's constitutional carry provisions.
        • johnnylambada 4y ago
          I’m so sorry to hear that happened to you, that must have been awful.
• nostromo 4y ago
  Families/households are also smaller so we need more homes, all else being equal.
  • angmarsbane 4y ago
    There are more divorced families too, so a family unit that previously occupied one home now occupies two.
• kfarr 4y ago
  Yes and the houses built may not be the type or location that people need anymore.
• Rury 4y ago
  Don't forget that houses get torn down and rebuilt. It doesn't happen often but it happens. In the US, modern houses tend to be larger, have better insulation (from what I've experienced), but can be cheap in some aspects (e.g. interior doors tend to be hollow, whereas older houses typically had solid doors). Overall though, I'm not sure if new or older homes were better built. I know some really well built old homes, but some very poor built ones too, and this goes for modern homes as well. Most should last 50 years though.
  • Pokepokalypse 4y ago
    Modern homes have much better insulation and energy efficiency (like LED bulbs), etc. But I think it's also true that a lot of builders can get away with cutting corners, and the materials that go into homebuilding are also often of lesser quality (like wallboard from China that outgasses toxic sulfur fumes). Modern plumbing is mostly snap-fit plastic tubing rather than copper pipes. It's a LOT cheaper to install. Supposedly lasts as long or longer, but it's still shitty plastic. Shitty wildcat builders throwing down entire subdivisions of deeply defective homes is a serious problem in the Phoenix area, I know that for a fact.
    • bagels 4y ago
      This is not new. My 1954 bay area house: the builders mixed scrap wood in to the foundation concrete to make up for undersizing the order, broken roof boards were patched with coffee cans and other garbage (coffee can had a 1940s date, it was there since built). These are just the most obvious examples.
• poulsbohemian 4y ago
  >Are current houses just more fragile and fell apart within 50 years? Obsolescence gets overlooked but it is important. Not only are houses often poorly constructed, but many are simply no longer desirable. For example in my area, anything pre-1960 is likely very small, possibly without a garage, and may only have one bathroom. The modern homeowner wants something better. Houses in the 1970s were frankly, weird. They don't fit modern tastes at all. Many houses built in the 1990s are falling down already because they were so poorly built. So my point is, you have to take into account not only the top end inventory number, but also that lack of desirability is a real thing that drags down actual available inventory.
  • parineum 4y ago
    > Not only are houses often poorly constructed You have no idea what you're talking about. Houses are built to standards significantly higher than they used to be (aka, with standards). Contractors skimp where they can but, due to threats of litigation, those cut corners are cosmetics.
    • poulsbohemian 4y ago
      Dude - I work in real estate, I know exactly what I’m talking about. I can take you to housing developments in my area built maybe 25 years ago that are falling the fuck apart. Hell - my ex-wife lives in a rental house less than ten years old that already needs real work. Are standards for electrical, insulation, etc higher? Absolutely yes. But don’t you go telling me I don’t know what I’m talking asking about, especially when you are misconstruing what I wrote.
      • parineum 4y ago
        And I worked in construction.
• EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  Yes, Americans build everything of wood, rather than cement or bricks, like in the civilized world. Remember the tale about 3 little pigs? After 50-70 years it falls apart and needs to be teared down.
  • fsckboy 4y ago
    Americans use wood because they have wood, it's an excellent building material. The parts of the world where they don't use wood, it's because they don't have wood, they've used it all up. America is covered in forests, Canada even more.
    • EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
      The cost of the frame today is a very low percentage of the total house cost, the issue is more cultural: that there are few people in America who know how to build from any other material, there are few cement or brick factories etc.
      • fsckboy 4y ago
        nothing you pointed out makes wood less of a great building material in comparison
  • ghaff 4y ago
    So someone who gets their construction knowledge from a children's fable confidently asserts that an entire country, really an entire continent, just doesn't know how to properly build houses.
• inglor_cz 4y ago
  Even here in Czechia, where we mostly build out of brick/stone/concrete (and not wood), ordinary 1950s and older homes are pretty undesirable unless thoroughly modernized. (Luxury homes are a different story.) One of my colleagues lived in such a multi-apartment block where there was a common toilet for the entire floor, so four households. In freezing weather, the toilet was bitterly cold.