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If something is too expensive you have two choices to make it cheaper: Increase the supply or reduce the demand.
Considering that an increasing price is the invisible hand pushing on demand... you really only have one choice.
It's super simple in theory and ultimately, everything in practice will boil down to supply and demand.
Another part of this bedrock is "scarcity" which is Econ 101 for "finite" or "there's only so much of something to go around at any given time."
And we keep talking about "affordable" housing.
How do you make it cheaper?
Make more houses seems the obvious answer.
Well, you cannot build a house like mine in my county any more.
The minimum lot size is now 10,000 sq ft.
Mines just under 5,500.
So we already have decided to have fewer houses in the same area.
The max footprint of the house cannot exceed 40% of the lot's, and my little place is just 30%.
There's not a damn thing wrong with my old house for a single family. I know this because we ARE a single family and we're doing fine.
My county appears to be addressing the housing "shortage" not by making smaller lots with smaller houses, but by making much bigger buildings and MUCH smaller dwellings.
Apartment complexes.
It's like they don't want people to own a home.
You're absolutely right about the situation. Build more houses. If they wanted more houses, instead of doubling the lot size from 5 to 10k square feet, they should allow people to build smaller houses on smaller lots. I'm vaguely aware of a "small houses" movement where people build houses smaller than average. In the middle ages, when I was growing up, they had things called trailer parks, and those were small enough to drag around (with a big enough truck). That's like the size of some small houses I've seen.
ReplyDeleteThe root cause seems to be politics which is pretty much always the same as graft and corruption. Some group or other doesn't want the look of houses or else simply wants more money from more taxpayers per square mile.
Maybe to stop global warmening or new ice age, whichever is the fashion this week.
There's also permitting and "system development fees", because apparently your property taxes aren't enough money to build new sewers. Where I live it can take almost a year from grading the site to breaking ground. It can also cost $20,000 per house in fees on top of permitting. At least the lot sizes are reasonable, new houses near me are 2500 sq ft 2 story on a 5000 sq ft lot
ReplyDeleteOne big problem is NIMBYism---"Not In My Back Yard." Building smaller houses might (oh, horrors!) reduce the value of existing housing, and we can't have that, can we? Before she hit her head, my mom was an investment maven, and she told people to think of a house as an investment---and not all investments work out.
ReplyDeleteProperty taxes drive part of the equation. Bigger lot and/or bigger dwelling=higher tax bill... And since government is in business to weild power and spend money it's a match made in hell. And they'll justify the higher tax bills any way they can. The truth is completely irrelevant...
ReplyDelete