> But what about the existing starter homes built after WWII, aren't they still affordable?
> Well, no. The big problem of a starter home is that it's only cheap when it is first built, because it is barebone. Once the owners start making the house theirs to accommodate the growing needs of the family, the house gets bigger and more luxurious. Every addition to the house results in higher market value because of increased desirability. So once the original owners are ready to move out, the house is no longer a starter home, but a big, well-furnished home from which the owner will expect to recover the costs of remodeling.
> That is the issue of the "starter home" or "grow home" idea. That home is only affordable once, for its first owners. So for every generation to get its "starter home", every generation has to build entirely new neighborhoods in greenfield areas, where land is cheap. When a metropolitan area matures, this ideal no longer works, the greenfield areas are just too far and are disconnected from the city. So, what can be done?
Not only is it expensive to buy a home, you can't even buy one cheap that somebody else got for cheap because they've (likely) made it more valuable by making it more liveable for themselves!
Perhaps the lesson here is that if we want affordable housing, we need better forms of high-volume transportation that can move people rapidly between city centers and distant under-developed outskirts.
The first thing I did when I bought my home was fix the "problem" that made it sit on the market so long and sell for a discount.
(Fortunately, it was a landscaping problem that was easy for me to fix, but harder for other buyers to fix.)
Now I expect to, at a minimum, make my investment back if I sell the home.
When Florida was abuilding like crazy after WWII for the next 25 years, the lot was usually about 10%.
Also, I judge the lot value by how much it would sell for without the house. The price for empty (fill-in) lots is ridiculous. I'm all for the market setting prices, but this isn't that. This is Federal interference and local building lobbying.
People are going to spend 35-50% of their incomes on housing.
It doesn't for all sort of reasons.
Basic functional blocks like bathrooms and kitchens can only be made so small. And once one graduates from college, shared spaces seem a lot less attractive.
Housing is a basic necessity and we need to get the rampant speculation and financialization out - we're all stuck in this game of musical houses waiting for the music to stop.
Mortgage interest deduction being eliminated for owner-occupied housing I would support a transition to. Loan interest for business expenses [to include a loan secured by property, aka a "mortgage"] should continue to be a valid business deduction, meaning that renters would live in buildings that had tax deductible mortgage interest while owner-occupants wouldn't. If you're trying to pull the tax support for house prices, this won't entirely do it. I strongly oppose taking away business loan interest deductions as that harms a LOT of businesses.
I don't see anything wrong with ARMs. Most of Europe has ARMs as the standard/normal mortgage product. Interest-only, NINJA/liar loans, ARMs with introductory discounted rates are more problematic, but there's nothing wrong with a mortgage being adjustable, IMO.
Having acquired land and being accustomed to living in ~600sqft all my adult life I thought I could build a reasonable living space for about $50,000. Once I started looking into it I ran into:
- land clearing / prep ~$10,000
- utility hookups and equipment ~$15,000
- impact fees & permitting ~$5,000
- foundation ~$5,000
The game has changed for most big cities since post wwii mass housing. Jobs are more focussed in fewer places and cities are much larger so getting into the city can be very hard from outer suburbs.
The UK is a good example for thr models discussed. It has been building small houses for a long time (like 150sqm lots) and have a minimum density requirement across the country to make this happen (which is also about retaining farmland in the longer term). Too many too far from jobs though its exacerbating englands divide between haves (in london and some other places - large and small) and have nots (in towns and accretions to towns with more people than jobs)
Suppose you begin with a large lump of money sufficient to buy at least several square miles of rural land and to pay for some basic infrastructure (roads, power lines, sewer, etc..).
At first, you practically give plots of land away to anyone willing to build a house. (Since it's rural, there's little reason to be there unless there's some critical mass of people already there.) Then, as people start moving in, you can raise the price of the lots to recover some of your initial investment and pay for additional infrastructure. Eventually, you should be able to sell lots at far more than the original land cost and recover your investment. This might also spare residents from having to pay taxes until the city is fully grown and there are no more lots to sell.
Some thoughts:
The new city should ideally be near at least some neighboring town with schools, stores, a hospital, and so on to make bootstrapping easier.
This would be an easier sell both to county government and prospective citizens if it were managed by a non-profit institution that is contractually obligated to re-invest profits back into the city. This could be similar to a normal city government, except that in this case the city starts off by owning all the buildable lots.
Partnering with a University that wants to build a new campus on cheap land would be ideal.
Figuring out the right amount of land to buy up-front would be difficult. Too much and it's too expensive and you never sell it all, too little and you'll end up having to buy more adjacent land later at steeply inflated prices or let some other developer buy it and let them absorb all the profits without re-investing it back into the city.
The way to affordable housing is high density, mid-to-high rise condos.
How though? Density sounds good on paper, and has tons of side benefits, but (as the blog post explains) the cost of land + construction jumps significantly.
I know here in the US, there basically is no such thing as "affordable high density condos". High density urban housing is expensive, by definition. So much so that there isn't a single unsubsidized affordable high-density urban housing unit in my entire state.
The only place I'm aware of that has affordable urban housing is Japan. And that's mainly due to a combination of having no meaningful population growth, and having excellent public transit literally everywhere. Two things the US simply can't have in our lifetime
Description:
- 40ft x 9″6″ High Used reefer container.
- Bathroom with shower.
- Kitchenette.
- Electricity.
- Two large glass sliding doors.
- Security Bars on Doors.
- Painted
Link: https://containerhomes.net/products_prices/reefer-home-12900...
Video walk through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeM1ed7Wrl0
Elio motors designed an enclosed motorcycle for ~$7300.
Assuming a design like an enclosed TukTuk moped [1], a mini motor home would actually change the world overnight.
[1] http://www.designboom.com/design/cornelius-comanns-bufalino/
2. Can they be mass produced? You should start a business if so.
The developer can have them here instantly and wants to build on a plot near Cesar Chavez and rent to the city. The city's not interested because the buildings are not built here and they'd be a little more expensive than existing SRO's.
http://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/31/13481254/micropad-tour-patri...
Fixing the problem is almost entirely about regulatory / legal issues.
I agree it's quite broken. But I still love their house design and concept.