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by 9rx 303 days ago
That is quite true. Early Americans had absolutely no trouble living in their 300 sq. ft. log cabin with eight children under foot. You don't technically need the behemoths we see today (or even what we saw in the 50s, which were still huge by historical standards). But it remains, if it was cheap enough, people would already be doing it. The law sometimes gets in the way, sure, but that's another subject entirely.
1 comments
TulliusCicero 303 days ago
The issue is that localities have mostly made adding new homes a big pain in the ass. If the new supply is constrained, obviously you're going to target the higher end of the market with whatever you do end up building.
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9rx 303 days ago
The pain in the ass has a cost, certainly, but isn't anywhere close to being the large portion of the cost. Even if you eliminated that cost, the houses still wouldn't be affordable to the average Joe.
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TulliusCicero 303 days ago
I think they could be, but a place where demand is high for housing but it's easy to build a lot more housing, that doesn't really seem to exist anymore.
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9rx 303 days ago
I suppose that goes without saying. If it were cheap and easy to build, there wouldn't be high demand.

Would it really be that cheap, though? Hell, even a single wide trailer built in a factory, which is about as ideal as it gets from a cost perspective, is still a home largely out of reach of the average Joe.

It remains unclear who is going to buy all these new houses unless they are sold at a loss — but who is going to build a home with a plan to sell it at a loss? You?

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thereisnospork 303 days ago
I'm seeing new single wides for around 40k new? The trailer not the land. Even rounding to an even 100k for a nice unit, delivered/plumbed/etc'd that's what, 500 hundred dollars a month on a 30 year mortgage? That's pretty darn affordable - less than any rent I've ever paid.
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9rx 303 days ago
> Even rounding to an even 100k for a nice unit, delivered/plumbed/etc'd

Which is about the same as the value of the average used home, less the land. But remember, the average Joe can't afford that. If they could, we wouldn't be here.

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