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The most novel part of that article for me was all the way at the end: > But what about the existing starter homes built after WWII, aren't they still affordable? > Well, no. The big problem of a starter home is that it's only cheap when it is first built, because it is barebone. Once the owners start making the house theirs to accommodate the growing needs of the family, the house gets bigger and more luxurious. Every addition to the house results in higher market value because of increased desirability. So once the original owners are ready to move out, the house is no longer a starter home, but a big, well-furnished home from which the owner will expect to recover the costs of remodeling. > That is the issue of the "starter home" or "grow home" idea. That home is only affordable once, for its first owners. So for every generation to get its "starter home", every generation has to build entirely new neighborhoods in greenfield areas, where land is cheap. When a metropolitan area matures, this ideal no longer works, the greenfield areas are just too far and are disconnected from the city. So, what can be done? Not only is it expensive to buy a home, you can't even buy one cheap that somebody else got for cheap because they've (likely) made it more valuable by making it more liveable for themselves! |
Perhaps the lesson here is that if we want affordable housing, we need better forms of high-volume transportation that can move people rapidly between city centers and distant under-developed outskirts.