[mathgeek]

The problem you run into is that housing (the land, really) is both a useful object and a rather solid investment. It's that dual functionality that makes it a different problem from disposable objects (iPhones and cars, as examples). Very few cars or phones are purchased as investments directly (meaning you see the value appreciate). Housing is almost exclusively an investment, both for finances (whether collecting rent or being able to leverage the value down the road) and for the land it sits on.

A world where most housing becomes disposable (i.e. it is not directly tied to the land it sits on) would be very different from the one we currently live in.

[baltcode]

True, though I'd like to understand it on deeper level. For example, how much of a house or condo price due to the land and how much of it construction, maintenance, taxes?

In any case, at least for building straight up, there is scope for improvement even with the land remaining a bottleneck.

[ghaff]

It varies enormously although there tends to be some correlation between the size and cost level of the house and the price of the land it's on. Someone's probably not going to buy a million dollar parcel of land and put a shack on it (even if they were allowed to by zoning--which they probably wouldn't be).

The general rule of thumb is $100-200 a square foot for houses so a fairly typical 2,000 square foot house is going to probably cost in the neighborhood of $300K to build. That assumes the land has water, electricity, sewer/septic, etc.

So for fairly typical exurb/suburban locations (i.e. not Bay area, Manhattan, or back of beyond), the house and the land are probably roughly the same value.

[derekp7]

"A world where most housing becomes disposable (i.e. it is not directly tied to the land it sits on) would be very different from the one we currently live in."

So basically the trailer park model?

[protomyth]

Didn't we have an article on HN talking about Home Depot and how Japan's houses are basically disposable? Still tied to the land, but torn down and new build instead of home improvement.

[edit:] yep, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10303455

[mathgeek]

That's what I envision, but I like to be optimistic that it wouldn't be that bad.

[derekp7]

One variation is the campground model. I have a camper parked at a fairly decent campground, costs are about 2.5K a year (plus electricity and waste disposal). But where I live the camping season is about 5 months. However, it doesn't have the feel of a trailer park -- instead if feels like a resort area.