5 ms·

What these analyses normally miss: - Building codes have changed. Things are much safer now than in the past. The chance of dying in a fire has decreased 1/4 s

• mistermann 2y ago
  It's a valid and good point, but it's also important that there is very often no other option available in new construction.
  • SoftTalker 2y ago
    When the zoning/permitting process limits the building of new houses, builders are going to build what gives them the biggest return: large, luxuriously finished houses.
    • theGnuMe 2y ago
      The luxury finishes are high margin..
    • jjav 2y ago
      > builders are going to build what gives them the biggest return: large, luxuriously finished houses In a lot you could build one largish luxurious home and sell it for 1.5 to 2.0M Or do 8 tiny townhouse units and sell each for 800K for a total of 6.4M I don't see how the single home will ever be more profitable if a builder is doing it. We're seeing a lot of these 8 townhomes per lot (4 on each side with small driveway in between) popping up everywhere, precisely because it maximizes profit per lot for the builder.
      • SoftTalker 2y ago
        You can't do the 8 tiny townhouses if that isn't permitted. Many zoning codes prohibit building even a duplex in a "single family home" area. Maybe this is starting to change in some areas.
        • camgunz 2y ago
          Exactly that: you've got a limited number of lots and a limited number of units that can be on those lots, so max the value of those units. With the lot supply and zoning, that equals replacing whatever might already be there with a giant McMansion. This drives up housing prices while also deleting the middle out of the market.
          • jjav 2y ago
            > that equals replacing whatever might already be there with a giant McMansion That's the opposite of what we see around here. Developers buy houses from the 1940 to 60's (big houses on big lots), tear them down and build an 8-pack or 6-pack (depending on lot size) of tiny townhomes. The only people building large houses are wealthy individuals building for themselves (as opposed to a development company building to sell) because they can afford to take the potential-profit hit and just build what they want.
            • camgunz 2y ago
              Yup, it's entirely down to zoning.
      • mattnewton 2y ago
        Exactly, the single home will only be more profitable because the townhomes will never be allowed to break ground in many neighborhoods in the US.
• TheGamerUncle 2y ago
  sorry what do you mean by saying "Desirability has changed. For example, the number of sports teams have tripled since 1950." ? I am like not American and I do not get how that is related to housing
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • ziddoap 2y ago
    If I understand correctly: Houses near desirable locations (e.g. sports stadiums) are more expensive. There are more of those desirable locations now (more sports teams = more sports stadiums). So the average is driven upwards even with no change to the housing itself.
    • theGnuMe 2y ago
      I don’t think it is causative at all. The statement sounds like an AI hallucination. But this is testable. You do probably see some gentrification in the immediate area but you also have the negative externality of parking…
      • ziddoap 2y ago
        Sure, I have no idea. I was just trying to interpret what the parent poster said.
    • grepLeigh 2y ago
      Is living near a sports stadium really that desirable? I lived a few blocks from the Giants stadium in SF, and I'll never make that mistake again. Running a 15 minute errand on a game day could take hours. It was impossible to get my car out of the garage or get on/off the highway. The food/trash left on the streets was terrible too, which made walking my dog a PITA instead of a pleasure.
      • ziddoap 2y ago
• xnx 2y ago
  Not only an increase in square feet, but an even bigger increase in square feet per person.
  • cj 2y ago
    Let’s go further and: - take the average household size in 1950 vs 2020 to calculate median house price per person in a household - then take the average square feet per person and find out what % it has increased in the past 75 years Then layer those stats on top of the inflation adjustments to hopefully remove some of the confounding factors?
  • steveBK123 2y ago
    Yes exactly - my parents and inlaws had homes 2x the size of what they grew up in, and also had half the children their parents had.
    • cperciva 2y ago
      Indeed. Growing up in the 80s -- in a fairly middle class family -- a lot of my friends had bunk beds. Now "living wage" calculations assume that every child has their own bedroom.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  • xenospn 2y ago
    The size of a single person has also increased. Considerably.
  • mattnewton 2y ago
    I think this is likely a distortion caused by zoning regulations, resulting in "missing middle" housing. Basically, if you are only allowed to build single family housing on a plot of land, it doesn't make sense to build anything other than a large luxury home.
• ziddoap 2y ago
  I definitely agree that there's much more to housing prices than most simple analyses present. Some food for thought in the other direction, though: - Tools (e.g. nail guns, paint guns, concrete finishers, horizontal drilling for utilities, etc.) and materials (e.g. pre-engineered trusses) are significantly more efficient, so labor costs can be reduced which should drive pricing down. At least enough to offset changes in building codes, but likely more. - Triple house size does not equal triple building costs. - I would definitely debate on quality of finishes. Some might be better, but plenty is worse. For example, crown moulding is not as common (in my experience), and skirting is typically much cheaper, and I rarely see chair rails anymore. More often than not I see vinyl floors replicating wood instead of real hardwood floors.
  • RAdrien 2y ago
    Productivity in building construction has not improved much, according to data, even if tools have improved. Even if tripling house size doesn’t literally triple costs, that is a straw man. It certainly must account for some of the cost increase.
    • ziddoap 2y ago
      >Productivity in building construction has not improved much, according to data, even if tools have improved. What data are you looking at? I worked in construction (to be fair, industrial and commercial sector) for over a decade. Productivity rates changed quite a bit during the decade I was an estimator. I will dig up my productivity books from when I first graduated and compare to the last one I purchased (a few years ago) when I get home. >Even if tripling house size doesn’t literally triple costs, that is a straw man. A straw man? Even if labor only accounted for 10% of the cost of building a house (it is much more), changes to labor productivity absolutely affect the cost to build. Productivity rates are different for a new build of 1000sqft and 2000sqft. Not sure how that's a straw man? Also, just to clarify, I'm not really presenting an argument. I agree with the parent comment that these maps/analyses aren't able to capture all of the variables. They gave some variables to consider when looking at the article data. I'm giving some others. >It certainly must account for some of the cost increase. I said it's not a 1:1 relationship, not that size didn't account for costs at all.
• brightball 2y ago
  My grandmother compiled a book of letters from families in my hometown that she gave all of the grandkids a copy of before she died. One of the letters talked about how common fires were and how the standard practice was to just pull up a chair in the middle of the street and watch it burn.
• jhrmnn 2y ago
  Looks like normalizing to price per sqft might make the price flat at least in some parts of the US? I always debate with my brother, an architect, why people consider an 80-sqm apartment big enough for a family of 4 (Europe), but wouldn’t aim below 150 sqm when considering a house.
• gred 2y ago
  If you asked me whether I would want to pay 5x more for a house that reduces my likelihood of dying in a fire from 0.00427% to 0.00104%, I think I would choose to roll the dice (and maybe DIY install a $20 smoke detector). 1950: 6,405 fire deaths / 150,000,000 US pop = 0.00427% 2022: 3,490 fire deaths / 335,000,000 US pop = 0.00104%
  • ziddoap 2y ago
    Death is not the only negative outcome of a house fire.
    • bushbaba 2y ago
      No but eating McDonald’s or drinking alcohol kill more yet we do it anyways
      • ziddoap 2y ago
        How is this related to the conversation? I'm not sure what point you're making.
        • bushbaba 2y ago
          The point is the risks of health/economic issues from home fire is something most Americans would gladly have for reduced housing price.
    • slyall 2y ago
      Death is a well tracked statistic and a severe and fairly distinct outcome. Other statistics might not be as available or accurate. Similarly the murder rate is a more accurate than other crime rates. Burglaries, muggings and assaults are often not reported to police whereas violent deaths almost always are.
      • ziddoap 2y ago
        Sure, I agree. Gred's post however strongly implies that the only outcome worth considering is death. That might be true for them, but I'm not sure if that applies broadly. Speaking from experience, losing your house to a fire is traumatic, expensive, and you lose things that can't be replaced. Even when there are no deaths.
• jjav 2y ago
  > Houses are much bigger. Houses have almost tripled in size [2]. I know the numbers support this but I always wonder why my observations are so different. When growing up (I'm Gen X) all my friends houses and mine were pretty big. Most of us were lower middle class so these were cheap houses. Land was dirt cheap so houses used the space and still had huge yards. Houses were simple, but spacious. By the 90s houses had shrunk, since now land was quite expensive so builders had less space. All the construction going on right now in my town is even tinier, since land prices have skyrocketed, so builders have the incentive to stuff as many tiny units into tiny plots as possible. So, where are these 3x larger houses these days?
  • cammikebrown 2y ago
    The big houses are REALLY big. And, while I can find a small apartment, new homes under 2000 sq ft are tough to find. The house I grew up in was 1500 sq ft and plenty for a family of four. I wish I could own a 1100 or less sq ft home but they’re all very old
    • skellington 2y ago
      Almost all of the middle class tract homes built in California (for example) in the 60s/70s are around 1200sf. They also used cheap materials, had no insulation, maybe 2 bathrooms but often 1.5, very simple kitchens, etc. The stuff that people buy now are much bigger and much more luxurious even at the bottom end.
    • frmersdog 2y ago
      I suspect that something has changed in the way square footage is calculated. Perhaps there are more finished basements or something. I was very involved in several moves my family undertook when I was younger. I feel like I got a good sense for home sizes. Many of the ones listed for 3000 sq ft. today look more like the 2000 sq ft. houses from yesteryear. I also think about Louis Rossmann's quest to find a NYC storefront for his repair business a few years ago. He brought a laser measure with him, to document how the actual space squared with advertisements. I don't know that he ever found a place that wasn't lying. Yes, New York and, yes, commercial, but I wouldn't be surprised to see similar tactics in place for residential, across the country.
• slv77 2y ago
  Much of the US housing stock includes homes built before 1990 (30 years ago). If most of the median home price increase was due to build quality there would be a bimodal distribution of housing appreciation with newer homes having appreciated more than older homes. Most of the appreciation in housing is due to higher household incomes due to two income households.
  • sir0010010 2y ago
    I would change your last sentence to: is due to higher household incomes due to two income households without a similar increase in the supply of housing near where jobs are.
  • beala 2y ago
    Why bimodal? Houses are being built every year. So maybe houses built in 2023 have appreciated 1% more than in 2022, and those have appreciated 1% more than 2021, and so on, leading to a smooth distribution.
• partiallypro 2y ago
  How much of the dying in a fire decrease is just because of decreased smoking, and the use of smoke alarms though?
• pllbnk 2y ago
  > Things are much safer now than in the past. I wonder, should arguments like this be used to justify the issue? With technological advancements things should become better (i.e. safer in this case) without raising inflation-adjusted costs. Wouldn't it be very similar to saying that processors should have become more expensive because they became faster or hard drives because they have larger capacity? Additional costs built into the new codes should decrease over time as builders become more efficient at implementing them or technological advancements allow them to become more efficient.
  • tpmoney 2y ago
    Not every safety item is necessarily an extra expense due to inefficiency. The simplest example would be electrical wire. 2 lead, paper insulated aluminum wire is less expensive than 3 lead PVC insulated romex, regardless of manufacturing efficiency. There's not a lot of modern AL electrical wire for price comparison, but Home Depot lists a 1000ft spool of #2 AWG USE-2 AL wire from Southwire for $0.80 / foot. The same spool from the same manufacturer in CU is $2.32 / foot. So while not a perfect comparison, if you imagine going from a 1950's 2 wire AL situation to a 2024 3 wire CU situation, you're talking a baseline price increase of over 4x with modern efficiency. And that's before you consider that modern building codes also require many more outlets and circuits than they used to. My home, built in the 70's has 3 circuits in the kitchen. 1 counter top, 1 fridge, 1 range. IIRC the modern building code is 1 circuit for every hard wired appliance, 1 for the fridge, 2 accessory circuits and a circuit for the room walls in general. If you assume a modern house with a fridge, range, dishwasher and over the range microwave/hood combo, that's 7 circuits minimum for the kitchen. So in addition to the 4x increase in wiring costs for the existing circuits, you also have a 2x increase in the number of circuits for just that room let alone outlet spacing requirements in other rooms and the like.
• tpmoney 2y ago
  It would also be interesting to see the numbers relative to mortgage rates and availability. It looks like the 1950's had mortgages starting around the 5% range, but that steadily increase to a peak of near 20% in the 80's before dropping through the 90's and bottoming out around 2.5% in 2021. Along with that I imagine qualifying / getting a mortgage in 1950's was more difficult than modern times with 0% down first time home buyer loans.
• angmarsbane 2y ago
  Houses are bigger, but seem less thoughtfully designed with a lot of useless space that seems to be there to maximize the sq. footage to justify high prices.
  • willis936 2y ago
    Hard no. I've been going to many open houses and there is a strong trend towards more functional layouts over time. The 1940s houses might have a large number of square feet, but the % of that taken up with unusable walkways and narrow rooms is much higher than things built later. 1960s era is better, 1980s better still, and best of all are new builds.
• sn9 2y ago
  Median cost per square foot might be more informative.
  • mattnewton 2y ago
    I disagree, each marginal square foot is not equivalent. (Access to owning the first few hundred over zero are in particular market is very important!) I think overall housing supply vs overall demand is still a useful way to look at it, because it captures how we're under building cheap housing.
• blargey 2y ago
  - Surface-level "finishes" - Square-footage-maximizing floorplans, with a 3-foot wide lawn that your HOA still wants in pristine condition - "Open floorplans" so you can listen to the roar of your dishwasher, washer, and dryer from the comfort of your living room (is it cheaper to get rid of interior walls and doors?) - Mandates to use more-fireproof sticks and boards, and non-carcinogenic insulation - Incremental improvements in the technology of home appliances, no thanks to home-builders I hate that's the sum of "progress" in housing quality. I wish more expensive homes meant something more than extra bedrooms with the same race-to-the-bottom construction and townhouse-level neighbor-separation as the next development.
• mattnewton 2y ago
  This can't be it, much of the housing stock is from pre 1950s and adding those finishes or code improvements does not make a house 5x as valuable. My theory is that we simply don't allow building anywhere near the rate of increasing demand, which is reflected by the anemic supply growth compared to population increases.