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i would love to hear a YIMBY consider the market forces/how capitalism works and not just reduce it to regulation. aka when it costs over $500k to build a singl

i would love to hear a YIMBY consider the market forces/how capitalism works and not just reduce it to regulation. aka when it costs over $500k to build a single apartment unit and most of those costs are construction with very little of the regulation burden driving up that cost.

vovavili 4mo ago
>most of those costs are construction with very little of the regulation You would be surprised.
pc86 4mo ago
If we're talking about home prices why are you talking about apartments? There are a lot of costs associated with apartment buildings that simply don't exist for SFH and MFH builds. Apartments are a different beast.
- epistasis 4mo ago
  Indeed, there's an entirely separate, far more strict building code for apartments than for single-family detached housing. This was an explicit goal of the designers of the early building code split: make single family homes as cheap as possible, and apartments as expensive as possible.
forshaper 4mo ago
Permitting admin is part of regulation, which in turn is required for construction.
- greenie_beans 4mo ago
  yeah for sure and i didn't say that isn't a cost. i said it's a small part of the cost, almost negligible compared to the cost to actually build
  - epistasis 4mo ago
    Is 10% negligible? 20%? How have you quantified this?
  - antisthenes 4mo ago
    > i said it's a small part of the cost, almost negligible compared to the cost to actually build Actually building is the same as building to regulations. Regulations make it more expensive. You can't just hand-wave separate them.
  - danaris 4mo ago
    Ah, yes, that mythical "cost to actually build." As in, the cost to build things in ways that completely ignore regulations. Regulations about building materials that won't collapse, and won't catch fire, and won't give everyone living there cancer. Regulations about safe electrification; safe, clean, adequate water; wastewater systems that won't drown the lower floors in raw sewage. Do you know about the Grenfell Tower disaster? 70 people died, 70 more were injured, and hundreds were left without places to live, because the builders didn't think it was important to follow regulations. So they could make an extra buck. So tell us about what the "cost to actually build" is. Please. Just remember that cost isn't only denominated in dollars and pounds.
    - greenie_beans 4mo ago
      idk you definitely need a lot of money to build a building, i didn't realize that was up for debate. also we are not talking about code regulations, we're talking about local regulations
cucumber3732842 4mo ago
>it costs over $500k to build a single apartment unit and most of those costs are construction with very little of the regulation burden driving up that cost. What? What? I dare anyone here who's simping for regulation to try to develop from scratch something that does not benefit from the myriad of exemptions that apply to 1-few family residential development (because there'd be no political will for the racket if the average homeowner was subject to it). Those $500k costs include $100k of which is engineering for a SWPPP that any sane site planner who doesn't want shit to erode in no time flat would have gotten 95% of the same effect of anyway. And the dirt work guy's bill includes god knows how many extra hours it takes to get it all spot on to meet the plans. He could've shot from the hip and done the job but there were plans and had to hit them. And of course the lawyer has to go rounds with the town over what level of maintenance detail needs to be specified in the SWPP. And of course the rent has to cover the landscaper who comes once a month to mow the ditch grass and stuff because that contract is how they cover their own ass. The reason every goddamn modern property looks the same with the same shitty corporate bland sidewalks and same planters and same parking lot and entry way with the same five styles of door and the same light level and same everything is because every party involved if formulaically trying to meet the regulations related to their trade as cheaply as possible. And everyone knows this stupid. Every single party in the chain of developing a building from the initial survey to specing the lightbulbs knows they could, without even getting close to underperforming solutions, deliver infinitely more value if they could just exercise their goddamn professional discretion. The guy delivering a rented trench box to a construction site that's chiseled out of bedrock knows what he's doing is wasteful and stupid just as much as the guy signing the check and the guys wasting their dime dropping it into the trench but hey, the rules are the rules and they're all billing the next guy down the line for it so it all goes on.
- greenie_beans 4mo ago
  it most certainly is not going to cost me $100k in engineering to design a SFH in arguably one of the most regulatory burdened states in the US: vermont
  - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
epistasis 4mo ago
Sorry, you think that YIMBYs don't consider this? Perhaps you should follow some YIMBYs! What does it take to get a more efficient building market? Lots of building, lots of competition in building. Low barriers to new contractors becoming builders, etc. It's truly only the YIMBYs who ever talk about any of this stuff in my experience.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- greenie_beans 4mo ago
  i never hear YIMBYs talk about this: https://yonahfreemark.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Freemark-Upzoning-Chicago.pdf https://yonahfreemark.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Freemar...
  - epistasis 4mo ago
    Again, talk to YIMBYs, and you'll get an earful about that paper, about a low-demand market with already affordable housing, that has been generalized to apply to situations that are quite different. Yonah Freemark has some OK work, and that's a fine piece in isolation, but it's an outlier in the literature but gets trotted out because NIMBYs want to use it to block housing, not because it's a significant piece that applies across the nation.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - greenie_beans 3mo ago
      YIMBYs will point to a chart of new multifamily builds and conveniently not look at the building starts before the regulations were moved and then certainly not think about what was happening in the economy during that time. a market with regulations: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST crazy that there were more houses being built pre-GFC when all those burdensome regulations were so suffocating and it never rebounded

vovavili 4mo ago

>most of those costs are construction with very little of the regulation You would be surprised.

pc86 4mo ago

If we're talking about home prices why are you talking about apartments? There are a lot of costs associated with apartment buildings that simply don't exist for SFH and MFH builds. Apartments are a different beast.

epistasis 4mo ago
Indeed, there's an entirely separate, far more strict building code for apartments than for single-family detached housing. This was an explicit goal of the designers of the early building code split: make single family homes as cheap as possible, and apartments as expensive as possible.

forshaper 4mo ago

Permitting admin is part of regulation, which in turn is required for construction.

greenie_beans 4mo ago
yeah for sure and i didn't say that isn't a cost. i said it's a small part of the cost, almost negligible compared to the cost to actually build
- epistasis 4mo ago
  Is 10% negligible? 20%? How have you quantified this?
- antisthenes 4mo ago
  > i said it's a small part of the cost, almost negligible compared to the cost to actually build Actually building is the same as building to regulations. Regulations make it more expensive. You can't just hand-wave separate them.
- danaris 4mo ago
  Ah, yes, that mythical "cost to actually build." As in, the cost to build things in ways that completely ignore regulations. Regulations about building materials that won't collapse, and won't catch fire, and won't give everyone living there cancer. Regulations about safe electrification; safe, clean, adequate water; wastewater systems that won't drown the lower floors in raw sewage. Do you know about the Grenfell Tower disaster? 70 people died, 70 more were injured, and hundreds were left without places to live, because the builders didn't think it was important to follow regulations. So they could make an extra buck. So tell us about what the "cost to actually build" is. Please. Just remember that cost isn't only denominated in dollars and pounds.
  - greenie_beans 4mo ago
    idk you definitely need a lot of money to build a building, i didn't realize that was up for debate. also we are not talking about code regulations, we're talking about local regulations

cucumber3732842 4mo ago

>it costs over $500k to build a single apartment unit and most of those costs are construction with very little of the regulation burden driving up that cost. What? What? I dare anyone here who's simping for regulation to try to develop from scratch something that does not benefit from the myriad of exemptions that apply to 1-few family residential development (because there'd be no political will for the racket if the average homeowner was subject to it). Those $500k costs include $100k of which is engineering for a SWPPP that any sane site planner who doesn't want shit to erode in no time flat would have gotten 95% of the same effect of anyway. And the dirt work guy's bill includes god knows how many extra hours it takes to get it all spot on to meet the plans. He could've shot from the hip and done the job but there were plans and had to hit them. And of course the lawyer has to go rounds with the town over what level of maintenance detail needs to be specified in the SWPP. And of course the rent has to cover the landscaper who comes once a month to mow the ditch grass and stuff because that contract is how they cover their own ass. The reason every goddamn modern property looks the same with the same shitty corporate bland sidewalks and same planters and same parking lot and entry way with the same five styles of door and the same light level and same everything is because every party involved if formulaically trying to meet the regulations related to their trade as cheaply as possible. And everyone knows this stupid. Every single party in the chain of developing a building from the initial survey to specing the lightbulbs knows they could, without even getting close to underperforming solutions, deliver infinitely more value if they could just exercise their goddamn professional discretion. The guy delivering a rented trench box to a construction site that's chiseled out of bedrock knows what he's doing is wasteful and stupid just as much as the guy signing the check and the guys wasting their dime dropping it into the trench but hey, the rules are the rules and they're all billing the next guy down the line for it so it all goes on.

greenie_beans 4mo ago
it most certainly is not going to cost me $100k in engineering to design a SFH in arguably one of the most regulatory burdened states in the US: vermont
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago

epistasis 4mo ago

Sorry, you think that YIMBYs don't consider this? Perhaps you should follow some YIMBYs! What does it take to get a more efficient building market? Lots of building, lots of competition in building. Low barriers to new contractors becoming builders, etc. It's truly only the YIMBYs who ever talk about any of this stuff in my experience.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
greenie_beans 4mo ago
i never hear YIMBYs talk about this: https://yonahfreemark.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Freemark-Upzoning-Chicago.pdf https://yonahfreemark.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Freemar...
- epistasis 4mo ago
  Again, talk to YIMBYs, and you'll get an earful about that paper, about a low-demand market with already affordable housing, that has been generalized to apply to situations that are quite different. Yonah Freemark has some OK work, and that's a fine piece in isolation, but it's an outlier in the literature but gets trotted out because NIMBYs want to use it to block housing, not because it's a significant piece that applies across the nation.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - greenie_beans 3mo ago
    YIMBYs will point to a chart of new multifamily builds and conveniently not look at the building starts before the regulations were moved and then certainly not think about what was happening in the economy during that time. a market with regulations: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST crazy that there were more houses being built pre-GFC when all those burdensome regulations were so suffocating and it never rebounded