Demonstrate this please. Without materials substitutions. Genuinely interested in the answers.
The cost of raw materials is very high as far as I know.
You can't get good hardwood, copper and so on without paying top dollar. Same goes for slate, trim.
I know that because I am actually attempting to build a tiny house in a traditional style for a little higher than 50k.
This would be a very valid comparison because it is;
1. Ignores cost of land. 2. Labour is free. 3. Doesn't ignore mod-cons.
I think the real difference is a normal person could have afforded the older house with a legal status!
But you can get many better materials, also. Wallboard is better than plaster. Steel framing in essential members is better than the best wood. Vapor barrier, waterproofing, insulated windows.
Things have changed. A direct comparison is hard. Changes in land use regulation are going to cost you a lot more than material changes.
I feel that most people building today optimize for the cheapest per sq ft, but if you are a builder owner and are a geek, you can really buy some amazing materials and employ some clever methods like advanced framing. You can construct a house with an energy bill of $100 a year if you want.
I think the future is in building smaller and smarter.
> Changes in land use regulation are going to cost you a lot more than material changes.
That's a fact. However I'm going for a tiny/small house in the countryside so I'll just dodge that bullet.
https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/landscaping-...
Has an extra bathroom, an extra 2-car garage. And modern electrical, and plumbing.
It's not pretty at all. But it's $7k cheaper ($40k), safe, and is to-code legal in most places.
https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/landscaping-...
Has 1.5 extra bathrooms, an extra 2-car garage, and modern electrical and plumbing. Probably a closer match to the style, at roughly that price ($46,600). Also to-code legal in most places.
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Obviously we're never going to get an exact match in materials. In many cases, you wouldn't want to -- a lot of safety standards have improved since then. But "you can buy what $47k got you for quite a bit less" is a reasonably accurate claim.
If anything -- kit houses at the $47k price tag are probably much nicer today than the were back in the day. (more space, more amenities, safer, etc)
I'm guessing getting a Lot in a good zip code, and then having to match housing requirements from local zoning or the HOA is what drives prices. Rival goods basically.
I think one major hangup is finding the labour.
I have almost no construction skill, and also work a full time job. I can't take on a kit house myself without becoming homeless in the process. Any contractors I talk to are so busy they are booked out months (or years) in advance.
Another hangup seems to be the design. Any contractors I have found who are willing to build, only ever want to build/sell you a house they designed. And they all seem to exclusively want to design/build suburban homes on huge empty lots that (in my opinion) look like dated McMansions.
I would love to build a small (900sqft - 1400sqft) modern kit/prefab house on a small urban lot like this: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3920/14620317361_5766da68c1_z.... or http://prefabcosm.com/media/photos/2008/01/12/ecube1398.jpg
Every home builder I've ever talked to will only (exclusively) build huge (1800sqft - 3000+sqft) homes, on large empty suburban lots, that all look like this: http://www.mayberryhomes.com/CmImageDir/inventory_1695.JPG or https://nhs-dynamic.secure.footprint.net/Images/Homes/AllenE...
That sum also does not include general contractor overhead and profit of perhaps 12%, architect fees, building permit fees, structural engineering fees, planning review fees, school district permit tax, road impact fees, civil engineering fees, landscape architect fees, Title 24 consultant fees, soils engineering fees, etc.
If you were magically given a vacant lot for free in Palo Alto and wanted to build that house as shown with a basement, it would probably cost you about $2M in construction costs today. Again, that's assuming you got the land for free.
It's a one-story room with a 9' ceiling height. The structural engineer specified two massive Simpson Strong-Walls, side by side. There was barely any room for the window, which had to be askew as a result. A local architect tells me the requirements were far less onerous even a decade ago.
Also foundation requirements have increased as well. You may be on a flat lot with no history of problems based on a soils analysis, but end up having to drill piers anyway. Just in case. Your municipality wants them. Which will likely increase foundation costs by tens of thousands of dollars--so much for affordable SF bay area housing!
I know one fellow building a new home on the SF peninsula who spent $500,000 to pour a roughly 1,000 sq. ft basement. (Small lot, not much outdoor space, so he was determined to have a place for his kids to play in.)
I was talking to a lady /u/sixup on reddit about her (excellent) Tiny House in Vancouver. She was thinking of getting these blocks of rubber inter-dispersed with thin plates of steel. This would go under her house and hold it upright. Earthquakes wouldn't do anything to such a house, and it's not expensive. So if you're worried about that and can lift your house, I'd do it.
Why don't we see $150k new builds with this level of fractal detail and material quality then? Or at $500k?
Yes, wiring costs money, but come on.
I think you're hugely underestimating the impact of labour, land/permits, and house size. People with $500k to spend on a house don't want a 1250 foot 1 bathroom house in an undesirable neighborhood, no matter how much "fractal detail" it may have, but if they did they could build one.
Like...it's not rocket science. The materials are all things which are still being made, and they're not appreciably more expensive now than in 1921. It's not some lost secret of the ancients. It's just not something people do, because it's a moderately expensive way to get a fairly crappy house unless you have pretty unique tastes.
But you totally can do it. That's why places like this exist: https://www.thehousedesigners.com
Labor is typically about the cost of the materials. So double the cost again. $188k
A rule of thumb is the house should cost about 3x what the lot you build on does. Obviously this varies wildly, but let's use it for an example, because it gets us to a nice round number of 250k.
I just don't see new builds in that price range anywhere even approaching the quality and aesthetics of this house. That's not to say that in rust-belt towns you can't buy old homes of a similar era for around that cost (or much less, if the economy has tanked, e.g. detroit) but new builds in that price range are gonna be stucco sh*t boxes.
When I say "fractal detail" I mean that the house has visual interest at different scales: the eaves are interesting up close, at five feet, at fifty feet, etc. It's detailing (often disparaged, and sometimes fairly, as ornament) that requires a level of care and craftsmanship to execute far out of proportion to, say, slapping up a long stucco wall with some flashing.
I suppose I'm not going to convince anyone of much, but I think that many of the excuses for the atrociousness of modern buildings are intellectually lazy.
You obviously don't live in California.
;-)
Land is the only one of those that has really skyrocketed in price. That was driven by politics.
A quick Google search for double-wide housing brings up this guy for $43k: http://www.montysheavybuilthomes.com/index.php?pageID=16284_...
You couldn't touch that today, as evidence by the fact that most new builds under $500k aren't even remotely comparable.
Look beyond crowded cities and $400k will buy you an amazing house. The cost is mainly in the land.
$527k, 758 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/611-Campbell-Ave-San-Franc...
$489k, 996 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/126-Dolphin-Ct-San-Francis...
$588k, 1112 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1101-Fitzgerald-Ave-San-Fr...
$599k, 1284 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8831-Nestle-Ave-Northridge...
And contrast:
$510k, 4500 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15320-Swan-Ct-Gulfport-MS-...
$500k, 5225 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4534-S-162nd-Ave-Omaha-NE-...
$500k, 8200 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4417-S-Holmes-Ave-Idaho-Fa...
$565k, 5000 sq. ft. -- http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1725-Burns-St-Detroit-MI-4...
The most telling in the prices you posted is that 758 sq. ft. house for 527k:
> Last sold: Jan 1973 for $25,000
That's $135,939.19 inflation adjusted to 2016 dollars. Where'd the remaining $390k of value come from (assuming house is in same relative shape.)
1. It ignores the cost of land, or more specifically, building permits. Houses are fairly cheap to build; the right to build one in a desirable area is amazingly expensive.
2. It ignores the cost of labour, which added a fair bit then and a lot more now (cf. Baumol's cost disease).
3. It ignores changes in house size, quality, fixtures, whiteware, plumbing, insulation, glazing, efficiency, safety, fire risk, etc.
You could buy what that $47k got you, today, for quite a bit less (the cost of building materials has been headed down steadily). But...why would you want to?