5 ms·

Not just politicians in general, but people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured

by pas 2y ago

Not just politicians in general, but people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. They are conditioned to worship at the altar of small businesses and good ol' craftsmanship. (And plot after plot they blindly erect yet another replica of the standard American Dream with the compulsory backyard where they truly can be free, and conduct HOA approved activities, and complain about the neighbor making a noise with their fucking weedwhacker, and complain about the other neighbor that has a problem with the smoke from the occasional backyard cooking.) Otherwise it's gentrification, more traffic and oh, ew, maybe even affordable-unit-dwellers.

ajb 2y ago
It's true that small businesses and craftsmanship are not efficient, but that's not usually the main reason why houses are expensive. They are usually expensive because of planning controls. Look at the price of land: in places where houses are expensive, land with planning permission is by far the largest component of the cost of a house. Building work being expensive is usually a consequence of this. Having said that, I've no idea where you live so it could be completely different in your area
lotsofpulp 2y ago
The standard tract built house erected in 100 days by DR Horton/Lennar/etc is the streamlined, mass manufactured option. Any more streamline than that is apparently more costly or otherwise unappealing to people. It isn’t not small businesses building most homes in the US, they are large, and sometimes publicly traded businesses.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Every once in a while someone will bulid a house in a day. However it is more costly to do this. you either need expensive really fast cure concrete or a low quality wood foundation. You need to carefully plan who is where and when so plumbers and electritions are no standing in the same spot (think sink with an outlet nearby). You need to specify where everything is to a pipe and wire are not in the same place with enough slack that the pipe can be put in. You pay your crews to arrive early so as soon as the last crew is done with a section next con start. your 100 day house has slack built in so if one crew is running late the next isn't affected. This means you can tightly schedule the labor a month in advance.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    Tract home builders are building hundreds of homes in quick succession. 1 house in 100 days, but also 500 houses within 2 years. There is no slack, because each team has to be operating in lockstep so work never stops, otherwise margins tank and a profitable project becomes a loss. The expertise of managing and executing this non trivial task is why those businesses succeed, and why landowners outsource development to them.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      There is slack - but the slack is in the house schedule not the human. A house can sit for several work hours with nothing going on and not care. The humans working on the house do not like being idle - they are working for money and when they have no work they get no pay and in turn that makes it hard for them to pay their own bills. The bank cares a bit about idle time, but the interest charges from a few hours here and there of idle time isn't that much and so that is where builders put the slack in. Of course those interest charges still add up and so there is effort to reduce them but the costs of scheduling a crew and then not being ready for them adds up even more than interest.
- pas 2y ago
  They are still too small to innovate (to take risks, to invest in better technology), the jobs are also small for better tooling, everything requires too much on-site labor, etc. SFH is itself a waste of money. And land, which is especially expensive where housing costs are high. For every small house different crews need to go there, prepare the site, do the foundation, etc. Half of the hard costs is labor. (Which is, again, usually high in areas with high housing costs.) https://www.construction-physics.com/p/what-makes-housing-so-expensive https://www.construction-physics.com/p/what-makes-housing-so... And of course the opportunity cost due to lost density effect is substantial, blablabla. The tragedy is that there's a huge discontinuity here, and overcoming that would require a lot of capital (social, political, financial). And in general construction productivity is extremely meh, to phrase it politely. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/delivering-on-construction-productivity-is-no-longer-optional https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insight...
pydry 2y ago
>people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. It's a pretty specific type of person who rejects the construction of streamlined social housing - somebody who definitely doesnt pay rent and someone who probably receives it.
- bluGill 2y ago
  No it is people who have no idea how mass produced a conventional house is. They think there is something for a factory to do. Then they go elsewhere and complain how houses all look the same these days.
  - throwaway173738 2y ago
    Yeah a competent framing crew can bang together a 2-story 4000 square foot home from sticks in 2 weeks.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - bombcar 2y ago
      Transportation costs are so high that it's often cheaper to stick-build a house than to bring in a manufactured one. The manufactured ones only win when it's very tiny (think: trailer) or when you do an entire development with them, and even then you often need a rail line or something to make it work. Even the "put together on site" kit ones run into problems that the stick-built basically avoid, like things not lining up exactly right. We're building houses, maybe not enough, and almost certainly not exactly where some people want to live, at the price they want. But they're being built.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        Note that stick built most of the wood is cut to size at a factory. If the wall is 8 foot, then you just grad the precut stack of 92-5/8" studs (after adding the top and bottom plates that works out to 8 foot with some needed slop for the ceiling and flooring), likewise you will get 104-5/8" for 9 foot walls. No other wall size is common in the US because then you have to cut all the boards on site for higher costs. Likewise the windows and doors are standard sizes from a factory. No plumber is making pipes on site, they just use a factory made pipe, valve, sink... A modern house really is a kit, there are just enough different size options and styles that there are many factory options and it seems each is custom even though most of the parts are standard.
throw0101c 2y ago
> Not just politicians in general, but people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. You can build a tract of homes in 90 days (or less) using stick frame. They won't be fancy, but they'll be up to code (and with a little extra cost (<10%) and effort, they can be made much more efficient than just code). A crew of 4-5 guys (plus some subs) can build a custon home in 80 days: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYd73YP57Ik&list=PL8XEQ1XKYNDVZVnHtVW2eUxIF9Tqb4pIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYd73YP57Ik&list=PL8XEQ1XKYN... If you pipeline that and use a standardized, cookie-cutter plan an entire row can be build out in a similar time frame. Production builders do it all the time: * https://www.newhomesource.com/learn/custom-or-production-builder-right-for-you/ https://www.newhomesource.com/learn/custom-or-production-bui... There are of course mass-manufactured elements that can speed things up, like using trusses. There are also now services for pre-cut framing that saves on-site effor of measuring and such: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-RhxjSuCfjHdlIMWpqhyt5jNPX&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-Rh... The building of the structure is not the bottleneck, it is the approval process and NIMBY road blocks that can add 2(+) years to a project.
- throwaway173738 2y ago
  In my experience pre-built framing just moves the error down into the foundation.
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    > In my experience pre-built framing just moves the error down into the foundation. There are ± tolerances at every interface, so if you're off a bit on the foundation, you can balance things out in the rough frame, so by the time you get to finish framing things are pretty square/plumb/level. But if the pre-built stuff is ±0, then there's no wiggle room in that part of the build, so the rest of it has to be that much tighter as you've not nowhere to adjust things.
- wrfrmers 2y ago
  It's not just the cost of building the house. Utilities and infrastructure (and the taxes to pay for it all) add up. Now, if you were to build smaller, densely, and close enough to amenities that residents could walk or bike to their daily activities, or to public transit that can take you farther away, you save a significant amount on initial AND recurring costs. And what's better, people WANT that! Or, a least, they're willing to eat the downsides in order to benefit from the upsides, including lower costs. But there lies the rub: when these types of places get built, they get offered at market pricing, not in a way that reflects their lower costs. So people say, "Why spend the same for less?" and move to a traditional suburb (or, more likely, put off home-buying altogether). The problem with housing in America always comes down to the way it was financialized and securitized: too much relies on "line go up, forever". There's no room for new blood/capacity (read:competition), there's no room for "investments" to lose value.

by pas 2y ago

ajb 2y ago

It's true that small businesses and craftsmanship are not efficient, but that's not usually the main reason why houses are expensive. They are usually expensive because of planning controls. Look at the price of land: in places where houses are expensive, land with planning permission is by far the largest component of the cost of a house. Building work being expensive is usually a consequence of this. Having said that, I've no idea where you live so it could be completely different in your area

lotsofpulp 2y ago

The standard tract built house erected in 100 days by DR Horton/Lennar/etc is the streamlined, mass manufactured option. Any more streamline than that is apparently more costly or otherwise unappealing to people. It isn’t not small businesses building most homes in the US, they are large, and sometimes publicly traded businesses.

bluGill 2y ago
Every once in a while someone will bulid a house in a day. However it is more costly to do this. you either need expensive really fast cure concrete or a low quality wood foundation. You need to carefully plan who is where and when so plumbers and electritions are no standing in the same spot (think sink with an outlet nearby). You need to specify where everything is to a pipe and wire are not in the same place with enough slack that the pipe can be put in. You pay your crews to arrive early so as soon as the last crew is done with a section next con start. your 100 day house has slack built in so if one crew is running late the next isn't affected. This means you can tightly schedule the labor a month in advance.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Tract home builders are building hundreds of homes in quick succession. 1 house in 100 days, but also 500 houses within 2 years. There is no slack, because each team has to be operating in lockstep so work never stops, otherwise margins tank and a profitable project becomes a loss. The expertise of managing and executing this non trivial task is why those businesses succeed, and why landowners outsource development to them.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    There is slack - but the slack is in the house schedule not the human. A house can sit for several work hours with nothing going on and not care. The humans working on the house do not like being idle - they are working for money and when they have no work they get no pay and in turn that makes it hard for them to pay their own bills. The bank cares a bit about idle time, but the interest charges from a few hours here and there of idle time isn't that much and so that is where builders put the slack in. Of course those interest charges still add up and so there is effort to reduce them but the costs of scheduling a crew and then not being ready for them adds up even more than interest.
pas 2y ago
They are still too small to innovate (to take risks, to invest in better technology), the jobs are also small for better tooling, everything requires too much on-site labor, etc. SFH is itself a waste of money. And land, which is especially expensive where housing costs are high. For every small house different crews need to go there, prepare the site, do the foundation, etc. Half of the hard costs is labor. (Which is, again, usually high in areas with high housing costs.) https://www.construction-physics.com/p/what-makes-housing-so-expensive https://www.construction-physics.com/p/what-makes-housing-so... And of course the opportunity cost due to lost density effect is substantial, blablabla. The tragedy is that there's a huge discontinuity here, and overcoming that would require a lot of capital (social, political, financial). And in general construction productivity is extremely meh, to phrase it politely. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/delivering-on-construction-productivity-is-no-longer-optional https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insight...

pydry 2y ago

>people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. It's a pretty specific type of person who rejects the construction of streamlined social housing - somebody who definitely doesnt pay rent and someone who probably receives it.

bluGill 2y ago
No it is people who have no idea how mass produced a conventional house is. They think there is something for a factory to do. Then they go elsewhere and complain how houses all look the same these days.
- throwaway173738 2y ago
  Yeah a competent framing crew can bang together a 2-story 4000 square foot home from sticks in 2 weeks.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - bombcar 2y ago
    Transportation costs are so high that it's often cheaper to stick-build a house than to bring in a manufactured one. The manufactured ones only win when it's very tiny (think: trailer) or when you do an entire development with them, and even then you often need a rail line or something to make it work. Even the "put together on site" kit ones run into problems that the stick-built basically avoid, like things not lining up exactly right. We're building houses, maybe not enough, and almost certainly not exactly where some people want to live, at the price they want. But they're being built.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Note that stick built most of the wood is cut to size at a factory. If the wall is 8 foot, then you just grad the precut stack of 92-5/8" studs (after adding the top and bottom plates that works out to 8 foot with some needed slop for the ceiling and flooring), likewise you will get 104-5/8" for 9 foot walls. No other wall size is common in the US because then you have to cut all the boards on site for higher costs. Likewise the windows and doors are standard sizes from a factory. No plumber is making pipes on site, they just use a factory made pipe, valve, sink... A modern house really is a kit, there are just enough different size options and styles that there are many factory options and it seems each is custom even though most of the parts are standard.

throw0101c 2y ago

> Not just politicians in general, but people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. You can build a tract of homes in 90 days (or less) using stick frame. They won't be fancy, but they'll be up to code (and with a little extra cost (<10%) and effort, they can be made much more efficient than just code). A crew of 4-5 guys (plus some subs) can build a custon home in 80 days: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYd73YP57Ik&list=PL8XEQ1XKYNDVZVnHtVW2eUxIF9Tqb4pIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYd73YP57Ik&list=PL8XEQ1XKYN... If you pipeline that and use a standardized, cookie-cutter plan an entire row can be build out in a similar time frame. Production builders do it all the time: * https://www.newhomesource.com/learn/custom-or-production-builder-right-for-you/ https://www.newhomesource.com/learn/custom-or-production-bui... There are of course mass-manufactured elements that can speed things up, like using trusses. There are also now services for pre-cut framing that saves on-site effor of measuring and such: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-RhxjSuCfjHdlIMWpqhyt5jNPX&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-Rh... The building of the structure is not the bottleneck, it is the approval process and NIMBY road blocks that can add 2(+) years to a project.

throwaway173738 2y ago
In my experience pre-built framing just moves the error down into the foundation.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > In my experience pre-built framing just moves the error down into the foundation. There are ± tolerances at every interface, so if you're off a bit on the foundation, you can balance things out in the rough frame, so by the time you get to finish framing things are pretty square/plumb/level. But if the pre-built stuff is ±0, then there's no wiggle room in that part of the build, so the rest of it has to be that much tighter as you've not nowhere to adjust things.
wrfrmers 2y ago
It's not just the cost of building the house. Utilities and infrastructure (and the taxes to pay for it all) add up. Now, if you were to build smaller, densely, and close enough to amenities that residents could walk or bike to their daily activities, or to public transit that can take you farther away, you save a significant amount on initial AND recurring costs. And what's better, people WANT that! Or, a least, they're willing to eat the downsides in order to benefit from the upsides, including lower costs. But there lies the rub: when these types of places get built, they get offered at market pricing, not in a way that reflects their lower costs. So people say, "Why spend the same for less?" and move to a traditional suburb (or, more likely, put off home-buying altogether). The problem with housing in America always comes down to the way it was financialized and securitized: too much relies on "line go up, forever". There's no room for new blood/capacity (read:competition), there's no room for "investments" to lose value.