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It's pretty insane that America has virtually no supply of inexpensive small homes. It's all about the 2500+ sq-ft behemoths that cost $400,000+.
Even though it's a "worse" deal per sqft I think the market for sub $200,000 homes in the 500-750 sq-ft range would be absolutely booming if it existed.
I know a real estate developer type. (kinda a moron, actually, but he's got a lot of experience in building expensive places to live.)
A comment he made to me once was "Nobody builds low-income housing. a mid-rise luxury condo will only cost a bit more to build than low income apartments, but you make a shitload more"
yeah, he was also kind of an asshole.
Yeah, I completely believe it.
Space-efficient middle housing for the poor and lower middle-class is not something we can rely on private companies to do in America. It's something that is going to have to take government intervention.
The apartment complex I was in took up as much land as around 5-7 average sized new construction homes yet it housed ~~42~~ 46(I actually remember two of the buildings having 8 apartments each) apartments. It was also in a part of the country where a car was basically required. There was space for every apartment to have at least 1 car and have space to spare. Realistically probably about 1.5 cars per apartment could fit parked in the complex.
Parking minimums are utter madness, and a big part of the issue in the US. Although I understand that in some states/cities where this isn't required, developers still overbuild the parking just out of the assumption that buyers/renters will prefer it.
Buyers and renters definitely prefer parking. I wouldn't buy or rent a place that didn't have parking. I can't solve the transportation infrastructure problem myself so until there is actually meaningful transit, I need my car, and I need some place to park it.
Yes, but do you need multiple parking spaces for every tenant (who might not have a car), especially given most parking lots are massively underutilized? Even more so when you look at the situation across a neighbourhood or a city where there are likely spaces nearby that could be used.
True.
However I was simple talking about an apartment complex in a relatively rural part of the country without access to public transit. There were about 55-60 parking spaces for 7 buildings of 46 apartments.
Also why car companies don't build inexpensive cars.
Here in the UK it's generally the same, but also in a way worse.
Developers are "required" to build a percentage of homes that are "affordable". I put both of these in quotes because, yeah. They dodge it over and over and somehow are still granted permission for their next project.
A lot of the big developments in minneapolis are supposed to have a certain percentage of the spaces be "affordable", but, if you happen to be one of the largest real estate developers and in the world... and if you happen to own several lobbyists... waivers exist.
He may have been an asshole but that statement isn't what made him one. He's just working with reality.
Making luxury stuff makes more money for him and his whole team. Simple stuff.
If we as society want change, we need to work with the vehicle we have to do so: government.
Set quotas. Offer subsidies to builders. Specify zoning to require x% of undeveloped land earmarked for building to be higher density or lower cost. (Or both.)
The context of that conversation was in a looming housing crisis. This was before the Hiawatha encampment made it much more visible.
In any case I was and am active in the city level politics and I was looking for a rough estimate to price out literally just building new apartments for everyone that needed a home.
Basically he was saying “but nobody does that,” and he’s right. And I wouldn’t expect him to. But, just for the record, from what I found at the time chatting up a few developers…
… it would have cost less than the cities-then budget for dealing with the housing crisis. But people want to be assholes for some reason.
Missing middle housing would be an even better solution (duplexes, quadraplexes, row houses, and small apartment buildings). Single family houses are an incredibly inefficient use of space and naturally cause greater sprawl, which means more cars and more roads (and consequently more emissions).
Trust me, I completely agree. I just have very low expectations of the American market and the American consumer. I figured that lots half as wide and half as deep could fit 4 times the number of "tiny" homes in the same area and it might entice many people who want a single family home to something more land efficient rather than a 2500sq-ft place.
I used to live in an apartment complex that had a number of buildings and each building had 6 apartments. I really liked it. One of the best places I ever lived, but unfortunately the management company decided that they need to constantly raise the rent. They ended up forcing a lot of people out.