[llm_nerd]

That kind of goes both ways, though.

I live in an affluent suburb in a rich city in a sleeper town just outside Toronto. My home was built in the past twenty years and is in a "McMansion" style neighbourhood. It's a relatively large home, but in many ways things have regressed.

Craftsmanship is non-existent. The kitchen cabinets look like Ikea specials with shelves held up by little plastic pegs. All of the various particle board doors are installed laughably poorly with giant gaps. Sound travels through the home with ease.

It's well insulated and has good multi-pane windows, but automation and mass production should bring a lot of that just with the passage of time. I would expect that all else being equal the same work should by better windows and insulation and so on than fifty years ago.

Regarding land value, it is interesting how in denial we are about land values. The city gives me property tax statements valuing my land at 1/10th the price of the dwelling...yet people are buying $1M homes on smaller lots and immediately tearing the home down to build new. More than a few cases of that demands that we completely upend our valuations.

[seanmcdirmid]

There is an equation they use that might be biased toward improvements. In Seattle/King county at least they are gradually changing the equation to value land more and improvements less, so our property taxes have been going down each year even though our value is going up (since we are a narrow townhome on a small plot). This is to ultimately encourage more density and make it more expensive to hold unimproved land.

[mdtancsa]

I think quality is something at least there is choice on. But even then, the lowest quality of materials now seems way above anything my 1940s war-time-four that I grew up in in Willowdale. It was just tarpaper "brick" over the frame. We didnt feel "poor" or anything as thats what all the houses were. I was lucky to buy my first house in 97 at the bottom of the market in Waterloo. An 1890s house on a 133x66 lot. House was absolute mishmash of "left over parts" as one contractor friend of mine described it. My wife and I saved up and did a full teardown in 2016 (again as luck would have it) at a low point in construction costs. My general contractor said it would now be 3x to do the same project due to labour and material costs. But, going through the process I could do anything I wanted. Fresh timber, or timber that was properly aged. Steel beams, or wood. You can choose "quality" it just is gonna cost. But that 3x jump (not even taking into account land costs) pre-covid vs post covid is.... eye popping.