Good short video. Add to this the Wall Street $ (public and private $) that is gobbling up millions of homes since great recession and keeping them as rentals (even as those rents escalate to levels most single wage earners cannot afford). The financial inequality gap is increasing an alarming rate.
Is this another are they may need legislative or regulatory muscle?
Kurt Miller
This is a great start to the affordability discussion but I find it frustrating when stories like this try to distill everything into one problem. In many areas of the country legacy “green” zoning is a very big problem since the prohibits ALL non-farm building for environmental concerns yet allows the construction of high density livestock farms that are more damaging to the environment than a coal fired power plant.
Also, relatively new building standards require 10s of thousands to be invested in drain fields, fire suppression, and other environmental and safety regulations.
Final example: Property tax systems with infrequent reassessments that often punish new construction buyers by asking them to pay 2×3 times more for new homes than comparable homes built 20+ years ago. I’m looking at you, Pennsylvania…
One may believe these added costs are worth the investment, but we can’t ignore them when it comes to the cost of building. I personally know many builders who now ONLY build single family custom homes because building communities on spec or small starter homes simply doesn’t make financial sense when competing against resale homes that never needed to account for these new standards. Too much risk, too little profit.
Good short video. Add to this the Wall Street $ (public and private $) that is gobbling up millions of homes since great recession and keeping them as rentals (even as those rents escalate to levels most single wage earners cannot afford). The financial inequality gap is increasing an alarming rate.
Is this another are they may need legislative or regulatory muscle?
This is a great start to the affordability discussion but I find it frustrating when stories like this try to distill everything into one problem. In many areas of the country legacy “green” zoning is a very big problem since the prohibits ALL non-farm building for environmental concerns yet allows the construction of high density livestock farms that are more damaging to the environment than a coal fired power plant.
Also, relatively new building standards require 10s of thousands to be invested in drain fields, fire suppression, and other environmental and safety regulations.
Final example: Property tax systems with infrequent reassessments that often punish new construction buyers by asking them to pay 2×3 times more for new homes than comparable homes built 20+ years ago. I’m looking at you, Pennsylvania…
One may believe these added costs are worth the investment, but we can’t ignore them when it comes to the cost of building. I personally know many builders who now ONLY build single family custom homes because building communities on spec or small starter homes simply doesn’t make financial sense when competing against resale homes that never needed to account for these new standards. Too much risk, too little profit.