When I was looking for a house in Seattle, many of the $800K bungalows were sold with the expectation that the buyer would level the existing house and build something new. During the same time frame in the rust belt (particularly Detroit) , however, many housing parcels were sold for less than the value of the structure due to the undesirable location of the land.
And yet, I own many worthless things that also exhibit that property (like a picture my niece drew of me and my cat). There is a totemic quality to possessing something, but that is almost always personal and independent of the thing's market value. Outside of "collectible" properties (structures with historical significance like castles or Frank Lloyd Wright houses), houses have a market value related to the imputed rent they produce and potential productivity of the land.
Now add on to that interior details, floor coverings, appliances, and such many of which are lucky to last 10 years and the numbers start to add up.
People don't generally want to enter 50+ year long commitments for physical assets/money.
> Now add on to that interior details, floor coverings, appliances, and such many of which are lucky to last 10 years
Interior stuff pretty much lasts forever if the house is kept at a stable temperature range & humidity. I have 1 nice hardwood door inside my house installed 12 years ago. It looks and works like brand new. You can basically pick things for inside your house that will last forever.
There's a pretty common trend on HN and in general to embellish house upkeep costs. I think it's mostly people who rent doing it, because they have no idea what it actually costs or aren't handy enough to do simple repairs.
I think it will be more interesting with "basic structure integrity" at the century scales. Do we really know economic impacts when tract housing/wood structures are tested well? I'm thinking past time scale of the electric and plumbing overhauls at the 50-100 year marks. There is a ton of housing out there that is less than a century old.
Houses can be constructed better, as well. The house I grew up in is now over a century old and it's the same roof, because it's concrete.
From a building sciences perspective, if possible, I almost always recommend a standing seam metal roof due to a 40-50 year lifetime (and you can mount solar panel racking to the standing seams without penetrating the roof).
There's basic ongoing maintenance yeah, but I don't think that counts as deprecation in any sensible way does it? If you keep your oil paintings in a mouldy cupboard they'll rot, but we don't say art is a deprecating asset because of this. You just make sure they don't rot and clean them every now and again.
Houses can stand for hundreds and hundreds of years. As they get older they get more valuable because people like older buildings for aesthetic reasons.
Is this really true in general? I mean sure I can find examples of it being true, but it's kind of assumed that many of the old houses in my parent's neighborhood of San Diego are teardowns whenever a buyer comes interested.
The house fundamentally is in a "moldy cupboard". Its entire purpose is to provide shelter from the "mold".
I don't think your house is representative of the US housing market. I once lived in an apartment in a 17th century masonry building in Alsace, and it didn't seem to give my landlord nearly as much grief as my parents' 1960s-era suburban home in Houston did to them.
The original construction costs will probably have been recouped after 370 years of continuous occupancy, though. :)
Inflation would only be an 30x increase from 3k to 90K
You don’t say that your oil painting has depreciated because it was damaged in a house fire. Property in Detroit has been ‘damaged’ by social decline.
When was this ever true?
If you literally abandoned a house and let it rot then yeah maybe in ten years it will have lost value because it will need a lot of work, but other than that I think it's never been the case they're depreciating in any meaningful sense.