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by ty6853 421 days ago
The materials are very cheap.

Last year I built a house for ~30k shell, about ~60k with utilities and everything inside of it. My own labor.

Of course, there are only a handful of counties that will let you do that without licenses, or a building plan, or inspections at times that preclude holding a job. Because there is always some self-righteous actor, screaming at the rooftop that their neighbor is going to kill the whole neighborhood in a fire, no matter that housing has been virtually completely unregulated for owner/builders in my county for 2 decades and none of the hysteria people warned of came to fruition.

The plus is all these people screaming for expensive regulations are absolutely scared shitless of my area, and do not live here. Which is nirvana.

2 comments

That may just be regulatory inertia keeping you safe.

Most people aren't building insanely stupid and dangerous homes because in most places they legally can't, and very few work specifically just in your county, so they just do what they mostly do, which is mostly safe and up to code. Maybe they cut a few corners. Probably a few weirdos doing entirely their own thing.

By the same token, if your weird neck of the woods made seatbelts non mandatory, it wouldn't mean everyone takes them off as they drive through, so the subsequent maintained levels of vehicular loss of life would say nothing about the increase of safety seatbelts provide. A few weirdos might be taking the belt off, though!

Still, it'd only take one weirdo's entirely preventable and lethal to their kids house fire/car crash to prove them idiotic and probably get the law changed.

Many people and kids die from effects of homelessness yet regulations that make houses less accessible persist, so I'm not confident of your thesis people will fix the laws to save the kids.

I would posit one of the best things we could do to save children would be to completely deregulate the housing industry and eliminate trades licensing. This would not only enable housing accessibility but more money for education, healthcare, and good food for kids.

Which area is this?
Could be here, New Mexico:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9j1Wz89vdc

Supposedly they don't need any permits. I didn't know there's something called roof grade spray foam.

That’s Arizona, mate.