Friday, 27 March 2020

Go big, or no home: How Americans are limited by super-sized homes

quote [ The American obsession with large homes—a matter of culture, policy, and economics—restricts smaller, more affordable options. ]

Supply chains become brittle but going back to decent is surprisingly hard, it seems.
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[by Paracetamol@8:13pmGMT]

Comments

Space_1889 said @ 9:03pm GMT on 27th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
The one thing missing from the article was a discussion of the "tiny house" movement as an American cultural phenomenon. I think the enthusiasm for tiny houses among a certain segment of the population reflects a reaction to the trend towards bigger new houses the article identifies.

On the other hand, after watching lots of YouTube videos about people who actually live in tiny houses and then get tired of them, it seems that most people actually do want something larger, especially if they have kids. Americans seem to want to have their own private space within a house, and plenty of places to hang out and to store all their stuff.
avid said[1] @ 7:56pm GMT on 28th Mar
The tiny house thing is taking the missing feature of current houses (reasonable size) and making it an entire product, much like the iPod Shuffle was the missing feature of the original shuffle-less iPod. It's the kind of thing that can only exist until a more mainstream product incorporates the feature.

In Seattle (east side for me), it's impossible to find new houses that aren't 3+ bedroom, and the old craftsman-style ones are either horribly distressed and being sat on by someone that wants top-dollar, or get sold by the grandkids to a developer for $300k. That developer adds a coat of paint, some knocked down walls, and a fake "distressed" timber over the open space later and it's "in the low 700's". Condos in the area are $400k (and old*) and have $500/mo. HOA fees, and you can't rent them out.

What I would like to see is something like the clever Hong Kong or Tokyo apartments that have movable walls and hideaway beds, just at 2x scale. Something that makes really great use of 800 sq. ft.


* Apparently the builder has to provide a warranty for condos, and that has been very expensive in the past. One high-rise in Seattle had to redo all the plumbing because of failed plastic welds. Selling it to a corporation to use as apartments doesn't have that risk.


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