Re:Katerra wanted to transform construction. It burnt $2B an...
by trevyn on Saturday October 30, 2021 @02:20PM
(#29051070)
I was under the impression that the “housing problem” is basically land prices anywhere near where everyone wants to be, and a zoning/regulation/NIMBY thing, not actual construction costs. Am I wrong?
Re:Katerra wanted to transform construction. It burnt $2B an...
by boublepop on Saturday October 30, 2021 @03:16PM
(#29051532)
Yes, you are correct. The housing prices have been steadily climbing over the years, and that’s not because companies are getting worse and worse at building houses, and it hasn’t been because of rising material costs (the rises that currently are are all much shorter term and due to corona). Essentially every policy or local decision that could help to provide more affordable housing has also been a direct threat to the real estate investments of the politicians who have shut it down. It’s the biggest generational theft ever seen, where the older generation is deliberately denying the entering generations cheap access to zoning in order to inflate housing prices and extort as much money as humanly possible from the youth.
Re:Katerra wanted to transform construction. It burnt $2B an...
by naveen99 on Sunday October 31, 2021 @09:06AM
(#29056699)
Children and the very old can’t work at all. So the youth in the middle have to do the work if they ever expect to make it out of childhood and into old age. how could it be any other way ?
Re:Katerra wanted to transform construction. It burnt $2B an...
by trevyn on Sunday October 31, 2021 @09:18PM
(#29062137)
Just because youth must do some small amount of work to make it to old age doesn’t imply that they aren’t being massively extorted.
Re:Katerra wanted to transform construction. It burnt $2B an...
by naveen99 on Tuesday November 02, 2021 @10:01PM
(#29090259)
Youth must do all the work. Who else would do it ?
I've been very interested in the Katerra story for a few reasons:
- I'm a real estate investor
- I have a logistics background
- The founder (or some other exec, can't remember) came to speak to my MBA class a few years back, and we toured their factory
What Katerra was trying to do is highly compelling, and I have to believe it'll eventually get done.
In terms of how it gets done, two paths initially come to mind:
1) Amazon acquires to leverage the logistics-at-scale approach and funds long enough to find P/M fit.
2) A new startup (or spin-off) focuses on one of the products (I'd choose software first) and nails P/M fit. By strategically making the first product one that removes blockers to pave the way and jump-starts change in the rest of the industry they can expand into adjacent products. Maybe there are existing companies like Houzz that could incubate one of these projects.
IMO solving this and combining it with ESG is world-changing to the extent of Tesla--affordable, sustainable housing for everyone. It could even be a status thing where the wealthy are willing to pay a bit more and for every build a home gets built for someone in need. If I were back in my 20's with no kids/mortgage and looking for a new project, I would tackle this.