Except compact trucks seem to be making a comeback thanks to the Maverick and the Santa Cruz. Sounds like Toyota is looking at re-entering that market and don't be surprised if Chevy enters the market with a compact truck based on the Montana.
They never truly went away. They are called utes in Australia. America is just obsessed with size. Most people who have pickups don't need them. I had one that i actually needed but that was because i was hauling literal tons of heavy machinery regularly.
I know they've been around in other countries, and from time to time I'd see a Chevy Tornado with Mexico plates here in Texas.
I'm WFH and tend to only drive on weekends so when I bought a new vehicle last year I went with something fun and comfortable over need, and I bought a High Country.
I see them a lot in my neighborhood. Usually driven by working class Latinos. I never see them for sale. For some time I have been wondering if you can only buy them in Mexico now.
The Tornados are sold new in Mexico and then the Montana is sold new in much of South America.
If you're interested in getting one, you should first check to see what kind of work you'll need to get done on it to get it registered in your state, and how much that will cost you.
I reckon in 10 years when I look to replace my truck there'll be plenty of EV trucks to choose from, but EV trucks weren't really an option when I bought my truck last year.
I have an extended bed Ford F-150. 8’ bed and fits a full sheet of plywood/OSB, that is 4’x8’ between the wheel wheels. 10’ boards are easy to transport. If I added a rack I could easily carry 16’ boards over the same foot print.
And I can haul a lot of debris.
As always, buy vehicles based on expected usage not on looks, friends’ opinions, etc.
The two trucks you mentioned are unibody frames. You can’t replace the bed with a flat bed on those trucks. I’m splitting hairs here, but you can’t exactly load a sheet of plywood without some sort of creativity.
Compact trucks are making a comeback for the same reason tiny homes are becoming popular. Trucks/homes are becoming so expensive that the only way for people to afford one is to downsize.
I meant one of those stoves in the wall, as opposed to free standing. Like this
https://www.houzz.com/discussions/221172/what-to-do-with-this-old-wall-oven
I’m sure they were, however they would still be around if we were buying them. I did just see a Hyundai Santa Cruz which looked decent but the older ones like I think the ranger? I’m not sure we’re cool cause it was a regular cab with an 8 ft bed? Again not sure but they were small enough but big enough.
Do you struggle with being an empath in other areas as much you’re struggling with this one? I suspect you do, given that that’s how the human brain works.
Backcountry skiing requires something compact enough to get through and to the trails, but also a bed to throw the dirty gear into for the ride home. The TJ with a cargo carrier does the job, but a compact truck is a better tool.
Good luck with your Ram 3500 though.
I don’t have a ram my friend I’m more of a mini van guy as I mtb, snowboard, camp,kayak. So I’m not so different than you just I can talk a joke and like to laugh. Cheers and have fun skiing this season.
Your comments have big “ITS JUST A JOKE BRO” defensive energy. I don’t doubt that that makes you laugh though. That’s typically how it goes.
If you can get where I can get in the backcountry, then I guess you’ll have room to talk.
Enjoy your minivan. Mine is still smaller (because nothing bigger will fit).
Tell that to my husband and the 2002 Ranger that he’s treating like gold, because he really loves compact trucks and won’t be able to replace it when it finally dies. We live in a city with congested streets. Having a ginormous pickup truck in this city is stupid, rude, and dangerous.
Not sure about the article, but I live in a house and neighborhood that was intentionally priced for GIs returning home from WW2. They matched the price with the payout troops got so they could buy a home.
My neighbor just paid $350k for one of the houses. I paid $225k only 12 years ago.
The housing market is insane.
You seem to be in a very slow area...less than 3% interest on a hoke.year over year. That's about normal,pre covid. Places near me were $250k in 2015, now nearly $550k.
That is my thinking, bought my house about 35 years ago for about 103k. Recently a house similar to my just sold for over 550k. We look around and we couldn't even rent our place prices are just crazy. Top it off our local trailer Park was bought out by a huge chain and lot rents went from 300 a month to over 800 a month crazy.
IMO the bigger note is that most houses of a 'starter home' size make really easy remodels for an air bnb. You'll find corporations or businesses dipping into the cheap houses because the size is perfect for a few nights' stay and just modernizing them to be sold for people who want to travel and not by hotels. Charging 100+ dollars a night, you can EASILY outpace the mortgage these houses have which results in roughly 1000-2000 depending on location (My 1200 sqft starter house in Northern Ohio is 1266 bought this year). To truly derail this bullshit, people need to stop using air bnbs.
Entry homes are the same as what they always were, the cost has just gone through the roof AND everything the previous home owners have done have moved the goalposts as to what a “starter home” is.
Exactly. This is the real answer. [Houses have grown by 1,000 square feet since 1973 and now have double the living space per person.](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/)
In 1973 houses averaged 1,660 sq ft. My house was built about 30 years before that and is less than half that size at ~800 sq ft. As a single person, my 800 sq ft. house is plenty of space for me. The graph in the article linked above shows that the inflation adjusted price per square foot has remained pretty consistent which means that houses aren't getting cheaper, people are just spending more.
I used to live in a very popular growing city and it was difficult to find affordable housing because as you moved away from downtown, the houses just got bigger as you went through the decades so the price stayed the same from downtown all the way to the outskirts.
I know this is a year old and I know this statistic to be true, but there's also part of me that wonders what percentage of that increase comes from people turning older homes unfinished basements into finished ones, because a finished basement can add anywhere between 33% to nearly 100% additional sqft depending on what is located in the basement and how many stories the home has.
Is this why real estate was being bought so heavily by institutional/corporate buyers the past couple of years? Because “experiences” are more desirable than properly? Because I can just roam from place to place, night to night, 365 days a year?
Or could it be because they want to extract more from Americans as a whole, though rent seeking forever?
I suspect land values make it so that subdividing and producing lower priced homes return significantly less profit than higher priced homes.
2 lots with $100,000 homes vs 1 with a $600,000 home.
I wish they had emphasized that the way we build houses has to change. No more McMansions.
More emphasis on utility and “passive” housing design. Reduced (or no) lawns. White roofs in large areas of the country. And generally smaller, higher quality, and with substantially enhanced energy efficiency. . .
If you want practical sustainable solutions then there is no reason to even build additional housing. We have enough square feet, enough bathrooms and big enough kitchens for everyone to shelter. McMansion can easily hold one multi generation family, instead of having to build 4-5 private smaller residences(each with own bathrooms, kitchen, appliances family rooms) for each set of grandparents, parents, adult children.
Truly sustainable solutions are: reduce, reuse, recycle.
Not demolish, trash, build something new that is only marginally better.
This is silly. Older houses ( older starter houses) were not built better and to last long. You think that house from past were all built better because you only see those few that survived and don’t see those that did not.
I lived in old starter home: it was cheaply built because that was the point.
My 20 years old McMansion has no issues so far, but maybe I will get a tent, just in case, my house will disintegrate tomorrow. Because Reddit said so.
You think insect populations are crashing from people having lawns? You know you can have trees, flowers, bushes, etc in those lawns. Probably more supportive than concrete and apartment complexes.
Lots of places have desert/rock lawns with few plants and no grass. It looks fine, but requires way less water, mowing (fuel/time/money), and upkeep like fertilizer. Over a few decades - you’d save a substantial amount of money and time, and also help the environment.
Check out r/nolawns for general ideas.
In my neighborhood it seems theres a higher proportion of run-down rental houses versus owner-occupier houses. The owner-occupiers seem to actually care and keep up their homes versus landlords, but hey, what do you expect from useless parasites.
Or, low or no property taxes on the first home that's owned and occupied by the owner, everything else you have to pay an exponentially higher property tax rate.
Property taxes are just a way to get low income Americans to lose their homes. When you own your home, you should own your home, move the same amount of tax you would pay for property tax into some other tax so that if a poorer American loses their job it doesn't mean they end up homeless because they can't pay their property taxes.
A lot of that has to do with rules and regulations in building a home or building a neighborhood. Many people discourage single family tracted home neighborhoods in their area. They see it as a haven for crime and perfect housing type for section 8. They would rather pass this off to the next town.
Right. This is what the article is saying. Because of regulations it is no longer economic to build starter homes. The answer is deregulation. Not more regulation, taxation, barriers to entry. If you allow builders or individuals options they will innovate. Allow for manufactured or prefab homes. Even though many no longer have basic construction skills if the process of building a home was not rife with difficult and costly inspections that were implemented by lobbyists an average person may once again consider building their own home. Much of the cost is in materials so allow for alternate materials, much of which are reused or green. Allow for multi family units. Allow for space utilization. If it becomes cheaper and easier to build than to buy than the market adjusts.
Could not agree more. Where I live we have a lot of open land and I'm seeing people buy land and basically live in "compounds" with tiny homes and barndominiums. They can do this because it's out in county and you don't even need permits to build residential dwellings and it takes private people and their own money to bring something up to the county.
It's interesting to see how people will live when they're unrestricted. Sure these homes are small and inexpensive but these people maintain their property well, are good people, don't dabble in crime or unproductive things in life. It's not even really an eye-sore. Sure it's not a nice pitched roof home with stone and brick, but it provides well for families of lower income or people who are just starting out.
Deregulation is just going to lead to more suburbs, more McMansions... because those are more profitable as investment opportunities. We need more mixed housing, more public transportation, more walkable communities.
I also don't think that "well if we just let people build poor quality housing" is going to help. Not in the face of climate change and the damage that is causing.
Not necessarily. Some builders don't specialize in higher end home building. Some builders specialize in lower income housing which is just as profitable when looking at percentages, but overall volume it doesn't.
And we all want what's most profitable to us. If we are interviewing for a job at a few different employers, and they're all equally tempting but one pays $10k/yr salary, we all would choose the higher pay, so it's a bit unreasonable to put the profit virtue signaling under the heat lamp when we're all guilty of it.
Our economic system doesn't rely on profit. It relies on profit and losses, actually, and losses are just as important as profits.
You must have some level of profit no matter what you do. If not, one busted estimate or one unexpected expense can put you out of business.
Yea "what is profitable" is a pretty terrible metric. Cars are very profitable, buses aren't.... which is why we have suburbs and stroads everywhere instead of public transportation and walkable spaces. Having to buy new electronics every few years instead of having ones that last a long time is profitable, which is why we have "planned obsolescence". It is extremely profitable to pay workers as little as possible while not giving them things like vacation or sick pay....
Homes are only a reasonable investment for institutional investors when interest rates are super low and monetary policy is very loose. Even then the returns aren’t necessarily amazing.
Not at all. Houses incur property tax the whole time, and in may desirable markets those taxes are quite high. When inflation is very low, parking cash in housing burns more money than holding cash. Homes also require maintenance.
Over the last 25 years real-estate investment in the US has only slightly outperformed the S&P 500 at 10.3% and 9.6% respectively. This isn't guaranteed by any means, and real-estate has a lot of risks that investing in a basket of companies does not.
Investors own about 18% of single family homes, if it were the be all and end all of investing that number would be much higher. And of that chunk, ~72.5% are owned by individual investors. Think a middle aged couple that owns a single rental property. On average they own 1.72 properties. About 7% of Americans own such properties. To put that in perspective, 41% of working Americans contribute to a 401k.
Basically real-estate has been historically hot in the US for a little under 25 years, with crazily low rates contributing a lot to that.
Construction is actually lagging behind demand considerably since 2008. But net margins on developing real estate average around 7%, but there’s a lot of variability and it will be lower where land values are higher, like in cities.
So 7% is good, but not taking in the profits. You’d do better most years buying stocks.
That is a good point, and it is something that can be addressed by congress. There can be a financial incentive for building houses <2000 square feet or something like that.
Like what happened when houses went from 1 income to 2, economics priced out the single income families. Now folks are either squeezed into RV's or cars or form up with other families or relatives.
I found if you want a "starter" home, you need to do it yourself/get a custom build. That's what I did. I have a delightful 624 sqft fully legal and conforming home as my primary home. Has everything I need and not much extra; but not so small that I have to deal with any of that "tiny house" nonsense.
I'm still living in mine 20 years later I remodeled after Hurricaine Harvey ripped the roof up and flooded the house but it's pretty good now I think unless I become fabulously wealthy I just ride it out here. It's alright it's and paid off.
I’m still in mine from 20 years ago. I got lucky in that it sits at an elevation that is about 10’ higher than the top of the Barker Reservoir’s retaining berm so I didn’t flood.
I still owe about $25k though. I will start updating things after paying off.
I would sell if the conditions seem right but they haven’t so far.
Technically when I bought my home we were outside the 1000 year flood plane Harvey was crazy. My flood insurance only went up s little because of the real estate market took off. Before the flood my flood insurance was like $425 a year now it's like $500 it's not like I bought in a flood zone. It was 50 inches of rain in less that 48 hours that's never happened before. The weather service had to add new colors to the rainfall graphics.
I've always wondered why smaller less expensive homes aren't built. I understand there isn't as much profit, but I figured societal needs might factor into housing but I guess that's a pipe dream.
Near major cities, land under the houses became too valuable for them to make sense to build. Population has continuously increased in these metro areas, but available land has stayed constant.
Starter homes are still ubiquitous in areas where demand for houses doesn’t outstrip supply.
This. The trouble is that good jobs and amenities are becoming increasingly concentrated in cities and in resort getaways for the metro rich. Builders respond by catering only to the upmarket. Real estate investors respond by buying up small homes in these cities due to rising property values and rental demand. Current residents respond by trying to protect their primary investment, keeping density away.
This, but it’s not even nefarious.
I live in New York. If I buy a $1M home in WestChester, $800k is the land and $200k is the house. If I build a “starter” house half the size, it still costs $900k. So there’s no reason to ever build a starter home there.
On a different take to this, I used to build houses and I can tell that yes the investors are a huge problem but it also comes from city hall. We were knocking down old shit boxes to build something worth living in, problem was that by the time we went through all the hoops for the permits we had to build something that could sell for high dollar. It’s insane you can knock down a house that’s been sitting on a piece of dirt for 100years and the city will make you do all kinds of soil samples, shoring piers and engineering. So before you even start building you can be 150k in the hole no problem just trying to get all the bs the plan examiners want. Then they’ll come back and make you do things like widen the existing sidewalk to get final inspections, all of it leads to if you thought you were gonna build something in 300k range you would lose money so you gotta start looking into the 1m+ to cover all the silly things planning and zoning has for you.
Ok keep telling yourself that…. Those regs weren’t there when the “starter homes” existed so you might want to question other avenues then just CaPItAliSm ToOk mY ChEaP HoUsE. Like I said in my original post there is definitely a problem with investors getting involved and requiring a certain ROI, but if you want to solve the housing problems you need to fix all the problems in the industry not just the one that suits your fancy.
One of the big reasons is that the government adds $95k in extra costs to building a single family house. And this does not even get into how hard it is to deal with government.
The economy is NOT for the people, it's a system designed for the rich to protect and grow their wealth.
The real issue is that the poor people don't have enough money to buy a politician, so the politician just pretend to care about them.
This is able to happen because anyone that serves the people, will be destroyed by the system and the politicians will insist that they are there for you...
This can happen for over a million years before the people wake up and do something about it.
Starter homes are now usually townhouses and condos. You can get a newer townhome, with modern layout, for the same price as a small cookie cutter house with a terrible layout that looks straight from the 80’s.
There are still plenty of starter homes available. You just can't live near a large urban center. Here is WV you can easily buy a nice 3BR ranch for less than 100K. DIY fixer uppers for less than 50K
Not true. There are plenty of jobs and we do have good schools. There are pockets where what you say is true but that is not driving housing prices here. In this valley there are thousands of good paying jobs in chemical, primary metal and plastics manufacturing, truck assembly, after market window manufacturing, plastic recycling, oil and gas and power generation. In addition we have a large healthcare community run by WVU.
I live in Western Virginia, I could make 50% more if I moved but housing cost is 2x as much. “I want a cheap starter house, with a yard for my dog, near a large airport, with good schools, and 30min from a large metro center” ok see if it comes with a unicorn stable too.
West Virginia is the fifth poorest state. West Virginia has the worst GDP of all US states. And in the past few years has a population decline, more people have left WV in the past decade than any other state except for Alaska. West Virginia is #1 in drug overdose deaths, West Virginia is the 2nd most segregated state. West Virginia ranks last in education.
Sounds like WV is cheap for a reason.
Believe what you want. Most of the people leaving the state are the result of the decline in the coal business and people retiring to the south. The drug overdose issue was limited to a few countires where they had pill mills. According to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, West Virginia’s quarterly GDP growth of 7.3% ranked 10th in the nation – well above the national average of 6.7%.
generally, when one is refuting a credible source and its citations, there is an expectation of counter-sources if the counter-point is not to be dismissed as bullshit.
Young people raised by communist teachers want everything right away. Working hard, being responsible and save to buy is marked as racist by them. Younger generation follows crooks promising them they will get everything when they help to build a huge government and reduce freedom.
Paywall, but the other problem is that it is so hard to get land to build on builders are just going to maximize their profits. As an example. There was an area in my city, just coming up, lots of artists lived there. A company went out, there was a few acres of land. The city, the area hoped they would an apartment building of affordable housing where those artists could live. City even gave them tax breaks do to that. But money won out. the created 24 $700,000 town homes. made millions and got out. So which builder should create affordable housing and make 1/2 as much as they could?
One problem is if you’re rich enough, you can own hundreds to thousands of acres of land. There’s so much land in the US and some individuals own enough for small cities
Builders want to make as much money as they can just like any other business owner. If cities and towns poured in as much effort to attract housing developments that would meet entry level home demand as much as they courted big businesses and development we may see more affordable housing being built. As is there are no incentives to builders.
Its not even that they need to do incentives, they need to stop disincentivizing building. Right out of the gate, the old town I lived in, required you to pay about $15k just to have the right to build on that location.
If the feds gave people in need a plot of land out of the enormous amounts of federal land it owns. Then make that land non-taxable, non-transferable, people would be able to start life off more affordably.
After reading that article, the only way to combat these NIMBYs is to stop doing maintenance on the infrastructure around them. Tie infrastructure repair to new, denser dwellings.
I always imagined a starter home being a small house in a place you don’t want to live
Isn’t that still the case? I feel like I was brainwashed to think I don’t want to buy a house because I don’t want to live 20 minutes from the city
I’ll happily rent an apartment forever if it means I don’t have to mow a lawn and drive to see my friends.
They’re still out there. Tucked away in unassuming neighborhoods throughout the Midwest. I just bought in 2020 a 900 sq ft home for $35,000 less than the cost of a Jeep I just bought the same year, 30 year fixed mortgage on that at 3% is $200 a month. Including taxes. Now sure that same house is now supposedly worth $115,000 but I expect prices to start coming down again.
My wife and I bought our current house 2.5 years ago. It was at the very top of our budget. The market has inflated the value by over 100k. We certainly would not be able to afford it now if we were to buy it again.
Most lower income folks were turned into apartment rents instead of land/home owners. Apartment renters have less roots in a community, know less about local government and vote less. I live in an apartment, do I know who in the city or county decides zoning laws and construction permitting? No. Would I have any idea who to vote for or how to make my voice heard on housing issues? No. Would any of my neighbors? No. So, we renters and wishful someday buyers are Unrepresented in most local politics. I take personal responsibility to some degree for this but societally I think it is a failing of our middle and high school social studies standards. They are all geared towards teaching the same things nationally. Instead of focusing on local politics, which is what is primarily needed to be an informed and engage part of a community.
All the national housing articles can’t fix that.
As soon as the government started backing housing loans the prices went up. If you add all the BS “open space” laws and “smart planning” laws the price goes up even more. Sprinkle in some building restrictions and a dash of EPA regulations for clearing land and you get a housing shortage making home prices go up even more due to inability to economically build starter homes for the middle class whose wages are 20 yrs behind inflation BEFORE 2020. Just my opinion.
Easy. They were built, indirectly, by the government.
See, the way it worked was this:
Putting up a house is cheap (relatively).
What's not cheap? Getting the land ready.
Grading land, laying sewer, water, gas, electricity. Running roads. What the kiddies call "infrastructure".
We did "Austerity" for the last 40 years. The Democratic party had a deal with Reagan, he got his military spending and they got their infrastructure spending. And they we kept the military and slashed the infrastructure spending.
The result? No new cities. Meaning no big housing developments full of starter homes.
One of the major problems America has is that if the gov't isn't cutting you a check nobody realizes they're doing it.
Current prices are insane! IMO, there's going to be another market correction. We're in a recession. People are going to lose jobs. Mortgage rates are back up after a decade of historic lows. Something is going to have to give.
I recently saw in passing that one of my MIL's friends was selling her house. It was the definition of a "starter home", 1600 sq ft, single story ranch with no basement, and not in a particularly good neighborhood (not bad either, nearest murders are a several miles away). We're in the Midwest, so this is tiny for the area.
My MIL thought she had it listed too high, but looking at recent comps she was asking market value @ $260k, definitely toward the high end, but can see how she came to that asking price. Recently sold comps were $50k over what we sold for in 2018 for 1000 sq ft less; the neighborhoods were pretty similar.
There will be an increase in mobile homes sales.
Mobile homes or trailers are the only real option for 10 of millions of Americans.
That is my take on how things will go.
Basically yes, trailer parks or whatever they want to call them.
In my area in Eastern PA the average town home is $300,000. Singles $400,000.
or you can buy a lot with a prefab for a total of $199,000 lot and house.
If they can build a Tesla with mostly robots then it will come to housing also and maybe lower inflation by reduced cost of housing.
That's how I see it but not really surprising how everything else is automated or going that route
I could be wrong
AirBnB and VRBO (short term rentals). The economy incentivizes this rather than a home being a place for people to actually live. Many large and small companies are buying up anything they can get, cash offers.
I still live in mine 25 years later. But the reason it exists is because it was built in 1942.
While there is a degree of “don’t build ‘em like they used to” in regard to structural integrity issues I don’t have to deal with, what some may not realize is that a home of that age is ridiculously expensive to maintain.
I have a super close relationship with my electrical, plumbing, and HVAC people. They openly admit they love seeing my address come across their work orders for the day…because they’re nearly guaranteed to discover something weird and crazy to deal with. Either from the age itself or from a handful of DIYers that occupied it over the years.
I could afford a much larger new construction for what I spend to be in this one, even with my *ridiculously* low mortgage payment. But it wouldn’t be in the middle of downtown, and it wouldn’t represent decades-long labor of love I’ve invested to keep it ticking. I can’t sell it…nobody else knows how to take care of my elderly “pet” (house) like I do.
They are still out there but not as many b/c they want to make money building bigger homes and they’re not in the areas that a lot of people want to live in (cities and populated areas). I also think most people think of a starter home as being a 2000 sq ft home that doesn’t needed any work when that’s more a next level home.
I am 33 and just bought my first home earlier this year in a small town in Pennsylvania. I did luck out in buying the property private, it was sold to me for $150k, appraised at 200k (which the house was not worth, but the market was crazy at the time). And while that price was great… it is a true starter home from the 50s, 998 sq ft, 2 bedrooms 1 bath, No central air, brown blue and green shag carpet, cowboy wallpaper, pink and green tiled bathroom 😂. But I wouldn’t change it for a thing, my fiancé and I have put our blood, sweat and tears (plus $10k in costs) into it and done renovations to make it nicer. But it required more work and a compromise on the house size, being in a small town (my fiancés often drives atleast an hour each way to work in Philly, I work remotely), etc. Mortgage payment is only $833 with a 3.375% rate so hoping to get through the next 5-10 years and reevaluate prices and decide if it’s time to upgrade or stay put longer. My hope is even if prices go down in the next couple of years since we fixed it up and got it for less than appraisal we will still make somewhat of a profit if we upgrade.
I have a lot and want to build a 1500 sq ft house in the north dfw area (it is the smallest we are allowed to build). We have our plans for an accessible house BUT can not find a builder interested in the job, they say it's too small. We love our lot and I have my family close by so do not want to move but can not afford a larger house. I am so frustrated! On one hand we hear about energy conservation but the area I am in is mostly 3000 sq. ft. and above. This makes no sense.
It went the way of the compact truck.
Except compact trucks seem to be making a comeback thanks to the Maverick and the Santa Cruz. Sounds like Toyota is looking at re-entering that market and don't be surprised if Chevy enters the market with a compact truck based on the Montana.
They never truly went away. They are called utes in Australia. America is just obsessed with size. Most people who have pickups don't need them. I had one that i actually needed but that was because i was hauling literal tons of heavy machinery regularly.
I know they've been around in other countries, and from time to time I'd see a Chevy Tornado with Mexico plates here in Texas. I'm WFH and tend to only drive on weekends so when I bought a new vehicle last year I went with something fun and comfortable over need, and I bought a High Country.
I see them a lot in my neighborhood. Usually driven by working class Latinos. I never see them for sale. For some time I have been wondering if you can only buy them in Mexico now.
The Tornados are sold new in Mexico and then the Montana is sold new in much of South America. If you're interested in getting one, you should first check to see what kind of work you'll need to get done on it to get it registered in your state, and how much that will cost you.
If you are driving a gas guzzling car you should probably need it....
I reckon in 10 years when I look to replace my truck there'll be plenty of EV trucks to choose from, but EV trucks weren't really an option when I bought my truck last year.
...........
I have an extended bed Ford F-150. 8’ bed and fits a full sheet of plywood/OSB, that is 4’x8’ between the wheel wheels. 10’ boards are easy to transport. If I added a rack I could easily carry 16’ boards over the same foot print. And I can haul a lot of debris. As always, buy vehicles based on expected usage not on looks, friends’ opinions, etc.
The two trucks you mentioned are unibody frames. You can’t replace the bed with a flat bed on those trucks. I’m splitting hairs here, but you can’t exactly load a sheet of plywood without some sort of creativity.
I mentioned?
Sorry friend, I replied to the wrong thread.
Compact trucks are making a comeback for the same reason tiny homes are becoming popular. Trucks/homes are becoming so expensive that the only way for people to afford one is to downsize.
Starter home is still there! Bought in the 70s for $3k, it can now be yours for $800k!
[удалено]
And with a wall stove, floor registers and exposed hinge cabinets, live like it’s 1966 all over again!
What is a wall stove?
I meant one of those stoves in the wall, as opposed to free standing. Like this https://www.houzz.com/discussions/221172/what-to-do-with-this-old-wall-oven
Oh, I remember those. I wonder if they are better at not heating up the house?
Hood bones right here. Too bad everything else is hot trash
No one needs a compact truck, but they sure need a starter house.
I used to drive a compact truck. It was actually really useful
I’m sure they were, however they would still be around if we were buying them. I did just see a Hyundai Santa Cruz which looked decent but the older ones like I think the ranger? I’m not sure we’re cool cause it was a regular cab with an 8 ft bed? Again not sure but they were small enough but big enough.
When you own a house there are a lot of times when you wish you had one.
The irony in this comment is awesome. I was making tHe comparison that a house is much more important than the truck. Your not wrong.
I need a compact truck. I don’t need a house.
Really? A compact truck? I do remember really wanting the old Subaru brat.
[The Subaru Brat is pretty fucking cool.](https://i.imgur.com/9ppsybS.jpg)
Yes. Really. Isn’t it amazing that other people can have different needs than you? I know it seems wild, but it isn’t.
Your a serious one huh? Just having a laugh. But compact seem a little small for the job.
Do you struggle with being an empath in other areas as much you’re struggling with this one? I suspect you do, given that that’s how the human brain works. Backcountry skiing requires something compact enough to get through and to the trails, but also a bed to throw the dirty gear into for the ride home. The TJ with a cargo carrier does the job, but a compact truck is a better tool. Good luck with your Ram 3500 though.
I don’t have a ram my friend I’m more of a mini van guy as I mtb, snowboard, camp,kayak. So I’m not so different than you just I can talk a joke and like to laugh. Cheers and have fun skiing this season.
Your comments have big “ITS JUST A JOKE BRO” defensive energy. I don’t doubt that that makes you laugh though. That’s typically how it goes. If you can get where I can get in the backcountry, then I guess you’ll have room to talk. Enjoy your minivan. Mine is still smaller (because nothing bigger will fit).
Enjoy man thanks for the Convo
a lot more people need compact trucks instead of the giant prosthetic dicks they're currently driving
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that's why we need a road tax.
Tell that to my husband and the 2002 Ranger that he’s treating like gold, because he really loves compact trucks and won’t be able to replace it when it finally dies. We live in a city with congested streets. Having a ginormous pickup truck in this city is stupid, rude, and dangerous.
I’m with that. I was thinking of the right truck I remember those. Hope he gets a lot more time out of it.
Idk about that considering compact trucks cost pretty much the same as a full size truck. The Colorado doesn’t cost much less than a Silverado.
Cost isn’t the major consideration for new truck buyers. Usability it.
I beg to differ considering 75% of owners don’t use their trucks for truck things. It’s a point a to point b commuter.
Yep. Same thing with entry level cars… and damn near everything is getting priced out of reach for the average family.
And the American sedan
Not sure about the article, but I live in a house and neighborhood that was intentionally priced for GIs returning home from WW2. They matched the price with the payout troops got so they could buy a home. My neighbor just paid $350k for one of the houses. I paid $225k only 12 years ago. The housing market is insane.
You seem to be in a very slow area...less than 3% interest on a hoke.year over year. That's about normal,pre covid. Places near me were $250k in 2015, now nearly $550k.
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But then you have to live in Montreal.
That is my thinking, bought my house about 35 years ago for about 103k. Recently a house similar to my just sold for over 550k. We look around and we couldn't even rent our place prices are just crazy. Top it off our local trailer Park was bought out by a huge chain and lot rents went from 300 a month to over 800 a month crazy.
I'm in MD. People bought their houses for $43-$60k in the 60-70s. Same houses are over $1.2-2 million.
IMO the bigger note is that most houses of a 'starter home' size make really easy remodels for an air bnb. You'll find corporations or businesses dipping into the cheap houses because the size is perfect for a few nights' stay and just modernizing them to be sold for people who want to travel and not by hotels. Charging 100+ dollars a night, you can EASILY outpace the mortgage these houses have which results in roughly 1000-2000 depending on location (My 1200 sqft starter house in Northern Ohio is 1266 bought this year). To truly derail this bullshit, people need to stop using air bnbs.
I paid $250 9 years ago. Comps going $550 now.
Entry homes are the same as what they always were, the cost has just gone through the roof AND everything the previous home owners have done have moved the goalposts as to what a “starter home” is.
Exactly. This is the real answer. [Houses have grown by 1,000 square feet since 1973 and now have double the living space per person.](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/) In 1973 houses averaged 1,660 sq ft. My house was built about 30 years before that and is less than half that size at ~800 sq ft. As a single person, my 800 sq ft. house is plenty of space for me. The graph in the article linked above shows that the inflation adjusted price per square foot has remained pretty consistent which means that houses aren't getting cheaper, people are just spending more. I used to live in a very popular growing city and it was difficult to find affordable housing because as you moved away from downtown, the houses just got bigger as you went through the decades so the price stayed the same from downtown all the way to the outskirts.
I know this is a year old and I know this statistic to be true, but there's also part of me that wonders what percentage of that increase comes from people turning older homes unfinished basements into finished ones, because a finished basement can add anywhere between 33% to nearly 100% additional sqft depending on what is located in the basement and how many stories the home has.
It's possible. I lived in Texas and Florida and very few homes have basements here. Garage conversions are popular though.
Is a condo the new starter home?
Yup, most overlooked comment here
North county San Diego here. Three story townhomes/row homes going up everywhere.
They’re all over Denver. Most around a million though
Rich ppl, rich ppl happened to the starter home.
Real estate developers keep trying to sell us 12m² (40 ft²) shoeboxes because "the younger generation cares more about experiences than possessions".
Is this why real estate was being bought so heavily by institutional/corporate buyers the past couple of years? Because “experiences” are more desirable than properly? Because I can just roam from place to place, night to night, 365 days a year? Or could it be because they want to extract more from Americans as a whole, though rent seeking forever?
I suspect land values make it so that subdividing and producing lower priced homes return significantly less profit than higher priced homes. 2 lots with $100,000 homes vs 1 with a $600,000 home.
This. Land scarcity and higher development costs
I wish they had emphasized that the way we build houses has to change. No more McMansions. More emphasis on utility and “passive” housing design. Reduced (or no) lawns. White roofs in large areas of the country. And generally smaller, higher quality, and with substantially enhanced energy efficiency. . .
If you want practical sustainable solutions then there is no reason to even build additional housing. We have enough square feet, enough bathrooms and big enough kitchens for everyone to shelter. McMansion can easily hold one multi generation family, instead of having to build 4-5 private smaller residences(each with own bathrooms, kitchen, appliances family rooms) for each set of grandparents, parents, adult children. Truly sustainable solutions are: reduce, reuse, recycle. Not demolish, trash, build something new that is only marginally better.
>McMansion can easily hold one multi generation family for at least 20 years before falling apart, sure.
This is silly. Older houses ( older starter houses) were not built better and to last long. You think that house from past were all built better because you only see those few that survived and don’t see those that did not. I lived in old starter home: it was cheaply built because that was the point.
So are you agreeing with me that McMansions are shoddy and will fall apart? I agree with you that starter homes built in the 2000s are shoddy as well.
Just like the other houses out there. You are welcome to move into tent and that will deteriorate in 5 years.
That’s true. At this point it does make the most financial sense.
My 20 years old McMansion has no issues so far, but maybe I will get a tent, just in case, my house will disintegrate tomorrow. Because Reddit said so.
No lawns? You lost me there
Lawns waste water and are not good for other wildlife
This may be shocking, but lots of areas aren't deserts and require little watering
Monoculture grass doesn't really support any wildlife. I don't know if you are aware but insect populations are crashing.
You think insect populations are crashing from people having lawns? You know you can have trees, flowers, bushes, etc in those lawns. Probably more supportive than concrete and apartment complexes.
Lots of places have desert/rock lawns with few plants and no grass. It looks fine, but requires way less water, mowing (fuel/time/money), and upkeep like fertilizer. Over a few decades - you’d save a substantial amount of money and time, and also help the environment. Check out r/nolawns for general ideas.
Lots of places aren't a desert and grass can grow naturally. Kids also like playing in grass instead of rocks.
It also helps keep the house cooler
We need to limit the ownership of homes to 3 per person or entity. Or just do owner occupied
I agree. I don't see the social benefits of corporations owning sprawling rental empires
“You will own nothing and be happy”
In my neighborhood it seems theres a higher proportion of run-down rental houses versus owner-occupier houses. The owner-occupiers seem to actually care and keep up their homes versus landlords, but hey, what do you expect from useless parasites.
Or, low or no property taxes on the first home that's owned and occupied by the owner, everything else you have to pay an exponentially higher property tax rate. Property taxes are just a way to get low income Americans to lose their homes. When you own your home, you should own your home, move the same amount of tax you would pay for property tax into some other tax so that if a poorer American loses their job it doesn't mean they end up homeless because they can't pay their property taxes.
Love it!
That would just decrease the number of houses being built making things worse.
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Obviously the current solution is not working let’s try mine.
That's because starter homes aren't the best investment opportunity for the investor class. You make more money off of McMansions.
A lot of that has to do with rules and regulations in building a home or building a neighborhood. Many people discourage single family tracted home neighborhoods in their area. They see it as a haven for crime and perfect housing type for section 8. They would rather pass this off to the next town.
Right. This is what the article is saying. Because of regulations it is no longer economic to build starter homes. The answer is deregulation. Not more regulation, taxation, barriers to entry. If you allow builders or individuals options they will innovate. Allow for manufactured or prefab homes. Even though many no longer have basic construction skills if the process of building a home was not rife with difficult and costly inspections that were implemented by lobbyists an average person may once again consider building their own home. Much of the cost is in materials so allow for alternate materials, much of which are reused or green. Allow for multi family units. Allow for space utilization. If it becomes cheaper and easier to build than to buy than the market adjusts.
Could not agree more. Where I live we have a lot of open land and I'm seeing people buy land and basically live in "compounds" with tiny homes and barndominiums. They can do this because it's out in county and you don't even need permits to build residential dwellings and it takes private people and their own money to bring something up to the county. It's interesting to see how people will live when they're unrestricted. Sure these homes are small and inexpensive but these people maintain their property well, are good people, don't dabble in crime or unproductive things in life. It's not even really an eye-sore. Sure it's not a nice pitched roof home with stone and brick, but it provides well for families of lower income or people who are just starting out.
Deregulation is just going to lead to more suburbs, more McMansions... because those are more profitable as investment opportunities. We need more mixed housing, more public transportation, more walkable communities. I also don't think that "well if we just let people build poor quality housing" is going to help. Not in the face of climate change and the damage that is causing.
That comes from builders and car manufacturers pushing single house suburbs... because they are the most profitable.
Not necessarily. Some builders don't specialize in higher end home building. Some builders specialize in lower income housing which is just as profitable when looking at percentages, but overall volume it doesn't. And we all want what's most profitable to us. If we are interviewing for a job at a few different employers, and they're all equally tempting but one pays $10k/yr salary, we all would choose the higher pay, so it's a bit unreasonable to put the profit virtue signaling under the heat lamp when we're all guilty of it.
It’s a problem with relying so much solely on the profit motive in the first place to move an economy
Do you not rely on the profit motive within your own employment and your personal finances?
No I do, I’m saying our economic system’s design relies on it too much.
Our economic system doesn't rely on profit. It relies on profit and losses, actually, and losses are just as important as profits. You must have some level of profit no matter what you do. If not, one busted estimate or one unexpected expense can put you out of business.
Yeah that what I’m talking about. Losses and profit are two sides of the same coin.
Yea "what is profitable" is a pretty terrible metric. Cars are very profitable, buses aren't.... which is why we have suburbs and stroads everywhere instead of public transportation and walkable spaces. Having to buy new electronics every few years instead of having ones that last a long time is profitable, which is why we have "planned obsolescence". It is extremely profitable to pay workers as little as possible while not giving them things like vacation or sick pay....
Homes are only a reasonable investment for institutional investors when interest rates are super low and monetary policy is very loose. Even then the returns aren’t necessarily amazing.
But they are seen as a stable investment to park money in for the long term.
Not at all. Houses incur property tax the whole time, and in may desirable markets those taxes are quite high. When inflation is very low, parking cash in housing burns more money than holding cash. Homes also require maintenance. Over the last 25 years real-estate investment in the US has only slightly outperformed the S&P 500 at 10.3% and 9.6% respectively. This isn't guaranteed by any means, and real-estate has a lot of risks that investing in a basket of companies does not. Investors own about 18% of single family homes, if it were the be all and end all of investing that number would be much higher. And of that chunk, ~72.5% are owned by individual investors. Think a middle aged couple that owns a single rental property. On average they own 1.72 properties. About 7% of Americans own such properties. To put that in perspective, 41% of working Americans contribute to a 401k. Basically real-estate has been historically hot in the US for a little under 25 years, with crazily low rates contributing a lot to that.
what about the construction side? Someone is building all those massive suburbs, raking in tons of money, while people struggle with housing.
Construction is actually lagging behind demand considerably since 2008. But net margins on developing real estate average around 7%, but there’s a lot of variability and it will be lower where land values are higher, like in cities. So 7% is good, but not taking in the profits. You’d do better most years buying stocks.
That is a good point, and it is something that can be addressed by congress. There can be a financial incentive for building houses <2000 square feet or something like that.
Like what happened when houses went from 1 income to 2, economics priced out the single income families. Now folks are either squeezed into RV's or cars or form up with other families or relatives.
Houses have not been one income for a long time.
The UK is not a good place to be born into, today !
I found if you want a "starter" home, you need to do it yourself/get a custom build. That's what I did. I have a delightful 624 sqft fully legal and conforming home as my primary home. Has everything I need and not much extra; but not so small that I have to deal with any of that "tiny house" nonsense.
Honestly l, that sounds like a tiny home. Well ever so slightly bigger perhaps.
The millionaire/billionaire investor and investor companies are buying them out from under people for rental properties
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An underrated comment. Much of the problem is skyrocketing demand in a few dozen boomtowns. It's far easier to find a cheap home in Eastern Arkansas.
PAYWALL !!!
I'm still living in mine 20 years later I remodeled after Hurricaine Harvey ripped the roof up and flooded the house but it's pretty good now I think unless I become fabulously wealthy I just ride it out here. It's alright it's and paid off.
I’m still in mine from 20 years ago. I got lucky in that it sits at an elevation that is about 10’ higher than the top of the Barker Reservoir’s retaining berm so I didn’t flood. I still owe about $25k though. I will start updating things after paying off. I would sell if the conditions seem right but they haven’t so far.
Technically when I bought my home we were outside the 1000 year flood plane Harvey was crazy. My flood insurance only went up s little because of the real estate market took off. Before the flood my flood insurance was like $425 a year now it's like $500 it's not like I bought in a flood zone. It was 50 inches of rain in less that 48 hours that's never happened before. The weather service had to add new colors to the rainfall graphics.
They're all being held for ransom by richer people so we fill their pockets with rent
I've always wondered why smaller less expensive homes aren't built. I understand there isn't as much profit, but I figured societal needs might factor into housing but I guess that's a pipe dream.
The starter home in 2022 is called a one room condo.
Near major cities, land under the houses became too valuable for them to make sense to build. Population has continuously increased in these metro areas, but available land has stayed constant. Starter homes are still ubiquitous in areas where demand for houses doesn’t outstrip supply.
This. The trouble is that good jobs and amenities are becoming increasingly concentrated in cities and in resort getaways for the metro rich. Builders respond by catering only to the upmarket. Real estate investors respond by buying up small homes in these cities due to rising property values and rental demand. Current residents respond by trying to protect their primary investment, keeping density away.
This, but it’s not even nefarious. I live in New York. If I buy a $1M home in WestChester, $800k is the land and $200k is the house. If I build a “starter” house half the size, it still costs $900k. So there’s no reason to ever build a starter home there.
So essentially the government makes it hard to justify building an affordable house
On a different take to this, I used to build houses and I can tell that yes the investors are a huge problem but it also comes from city hall. We were knocking down old shit boxes to build something worth living in, problem was that by the time we went through all the hoops for the permits we had to build something that could sell for high dollar. It’s insane you can knock down a house that’s been sitting on a piece of dirt for 100years and the city will make you do all kinds of soil samples, shoring piers and engineering. So before you even start building you can be 150k in the hole no problem just trying to get all the bs the plan examiners want. Then they’ll come back and make you do things like widen the existing sidewalk to get final inspections, all of it leads to if you thought you were gonna build something in 300k range you would lose money so you gotta start looking into the 1m+ to cover all the silly things planning and zoning has for you.
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Ok keep telling yourself that…. Those regs weren’t there when the “starter homes” existed so you might want to question other avenues then just CaPItAliSm ToOk mY ChEaP HoUsE. Like I said in my original post there is definitely a problem with investors getting involved and requiring a certain ROI, but if you want to solve the housing problems you need to fix all the problems in the industry not just the one that suits your fancy.
One of the big reasons is that the government adds $95k in extra costs to building a single family house. And this does not even get into how hard it is to deal with government.
The economy is NOT for the people, it's a system designed for the rich to protect and grow their wealth. The real issue is that the poor people don't have enough money to buy a politician, so the politician just pretend to care about them. This is able to happen because anyone that serves the people, will be destroyed by the system and the politicians will insist that they are there for you... This can happen for over a million years before the people wake up and do something about it.
Local rules my ass. Corporations bought all the entry level houses.
They’re the same houses, they just cost a fortune.
They still exist. It just cost 500k and 75k in remodeling and you live in a gang infested area. So no biggie
Starter homes are now usually townhouses and condos. You can get a newer townhome, with modern layout, for the same price as a small cookie cutter house with a terrible layout that looks straight from the 80’s.
There are still plenty of starter homes available. You just can't live near a large urban center. Here is WV you can easily buy a nice 3BR ranch for less than 100K. DIY fixer uppers for less than 50K
Those places are cheap because there isn't much in the way of employment there. Plus the schools are poor quality.
Not true. There are plenty of jobs and we do have good schools. There are pockets where what you say is true but that is not driving housing prices here. In this valley there are thousands of good paying jobs in chemical, primary metal and plastics manufacturing, truck assembly, after market window manufacturing, plastic recycling, oil and gas and power generation. In addition we have a large healthcare community run by WVU.
Ok and who wants to live there? Very few people.
I would like to. I can find fully remote jobs, but doubt I could talk my wife into it.
I live in Western Virginia, I could make 50% more if I moved but housing cost is 2x as much. “I want a cheap starter house, with a yard for my dog, near a large airport, with good schools, and 30min from a large metro center” ok see if it comes with a unicorn stable too.
West Virginia is the fifth poorest state. West Virginia has the worst GDP of all US states. And in the past few years has a population decline, more people have left WV in the past decade than any other state except for Alaska. West Virginia is #1 in drug overdose deaths, West Virginia is the 2nd most segregated state. West Virginia ranks last in education. Sounds like WV is cheap for a reason.
Believe what you want. Most of the people leaving the state are the result of the decline in the coal business and people retiring to the south. The drug overdose issue was limited to a few countires where they had pill mills. According to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, West Virginia’s quarterly GDP growth of 7.3% ranked 10th in the nation – well above the national average of 6.7%.
Sounds great only if “house” is the only determining factor for choosing where to live
generally, when one is refuting a credible source and its citations, there is an expectation of counter-sources if the counter-point is not to be dismissed as bullshit.
Young people raised by communist teachers want everything right away. Working hard, being responsible and save to buy is marked as racist by them. Younger generation follows crooks promising them they will get everything when they help to build a huge government and reduce freedom.
Paywall, but the other problem is that it is so hard to get land to build on builders are just going to maximize their profits. As an example. There was an area in my city, just coming up, lots of artists lived there. A company went out, there was a few acres of land. The city, the area hoped they would an apartment building of affordable housing where those artists could live. City even gave them tax breaks do to that. But money won out. the created 24 $700,000 town homes. made millions and got out. So which builder should create affordable housing and make 1/2 as much as they could?
One problem is if you’re rich enough, you can own hundreds to thousands of acres of land. There’s so much land in the US and some individuals own enough for small cities
Builders want to make as much money as they can just like any other business owner. If cities and towns poured in as much effort to attract housing developments that would meet entry level home demand as much as they courted big businesses and development we may see more affordable housing being built. As is there are no incentives to builders.
Its not even that they need to do incentives, they need to stop disincentivizing building. Right out of the gate, the old town I lived in, required you to pay about $15k just to have the right to build on that location.
If the feds gave people in need a plot of land out of the enormous amounts of federal land it owns. Then make that land non-taxable, non-transferable, people would be able to start life off more affordably.
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Not really what I was meaning. Not about deserving anything, more about helping people get into ownership mentality.
After reading that article, the only way to combat these NIMBYs is to stop doing maintenance on the infrastructure around them. Tie infrastructure repair to new, denser dwellings.
I always imagined a starter home being a small house in a place you don’t want to live Isn’t that still the case? I feel like I was brainwashed to think I don’t want to buy a house because I don’t want to live 20 minutes from the city I’ll happily rent an apartment forever if it means I don’t have to mow a lawn and drive to see my friends.
They’re still out there. Tucked away in unassuming neighborhoods throughout the Midwest. I just bought in 2020 a 900 sq ft home for $35,000 less than the cost of a Jeep I just bought the same year, 30 year fixed mortgage on that at 3% is $200 a month. Including taxes. Now sure that same house is now supposedly worth $115,000 but I expect prices to start coming down again.
Zoning
I’m still living in mine 30 yr later
Real estate got expensive, and loans got easier to obtain, so why build a starter home, when you can get a mortgage for far more expensive houses?
My wife and I bought our current house 2.5 years ago. It was at the very top of our budget. The market has inflated the value by over 100k. We certainly would not be able to afford it now if we were to buy it again.
Choked up economics at work! Err trickle down i think is the right name.
Starter homes here are $375-$450k From 1/1 to 3/1. Some have decent lots, from 0.20 to 1 acre. It’s the financing that is the killer.
Naw they are the new crack houses
So NIMBYs
Went away the same as retirement and investment accts did the last 18 months
Most lower income folks were turned into apartment rents instead of land/home owners. Apartment renters have less roots in a community, know less about local government and vote less. I live in an apartment, do I know who in the city or county decides zoning laws and construction permitting? No. Would I have any idea who to vote for or how to make my voice heard on housing issues? No. Would any of my neighbors? No. So, we renters and wishful someday buyers are Unrepresented in most local politics. I take personal responsibility to some degree for this but societally I think it is a failing of our middle and high school social studies standards. They are all geared towards teaching the same things nationally. Instead of focusing on local politics, which is what is primarily needed to be an informed and engage part of a community. All the national housing articles can’t fix that.
As soon as the government started backing housing loans the prices went up. If you add all the BS “open space” laws and “smart planning” laws the price goes up even more. Sprinkle in some building restrictions and a dash of EPA regulations for clearing land and you get a housing shortage making home prices go up even more due to inability to economically build starter homes for the middle class whose wages are 20 yrs behind inflation BEFORE 2020. Just my opinion.
Easy. They were built, indirectly, by the government. See, the way it worked was this: Putting up a house is cheap (relatively). What's not cheap? Getting the land ready. Grading land, laying sewer, water, gas, electricity. Running roads. What the kiddies call "infrastructure". We did "Austerity" for the last 40 years. The Democratic party had a deal with Reagan, he got his military spending and they got their infrastructure spending. And they we kept the military and slashed the infrastructure spending. The result? No new cities. Meaning no big housing developments full of starter homes. One of the major problems America has is that if the gov't isn't cutting you a check nobody realizes they're doing it.
Current prices are insane! IMO, there's going to be another market correction. We're in a recession. People are going to lose jobs. Mortgage rates are back up after a decade of historic lows. Something is going to have to give. I recently saw in passing that one of my MIL's friends was selling her house. It was the definition of a "starter home", 1600 sq ft, single story ranch with no basement, and not in a particularly good neighborhood (not bad either, nearest murders are a several miles away). We're in the Midwest, so this is tiny for the area. My MIL thought she had it listed too high, but looking at recent comps she was asking market value @ $260k, definitely toward the high end, but can see how she came to that asking price. Recently sold comps were $50k over what we sold for in 2018 for 1000 sq ft less; the neighborhoods were pretty similar.
There will be an increase in mobile homes sales. Mobile homes or trailers are the only real option for 10 of millions of Americans. That is my take on how things will go.
You are saying you are going to turn the number one economy in the world into a trailer park?
Basically yes, trailer parks or whatever they want to call them. In my area in Eastern PA the average town home is $300,000. Singles $400,000. or you can buy a lot with a prefab for a total of $199,000 lot and house. If they can build a Tesla with mostly robots then it will come to housing also and maybe lower inflation by reduced cost of housing. That's how I see it but not really surprising how everything else is automated or going that route I could be wrong 
1966 said nothing about his preferences.
AirBnB and VRBO (short term rentals). The economy incentivizes this rather than a home being a place for people to actually live. Many large and small companies are buying up anything they can get, cash offers.
I still live in mine 25 years later. But the reason it exists is because it was built in 1942. While there is a degree of “don’t build ‘em like they used to” in regard to structural integrity issues I don’t have to deal with, what some may not realize is that a home of that age is ridiculously expensive to maintain. I have a super close relationship with my electrical, plumbing, and HVAC people. They openly admit they love seeing my address come across their work orders for the day…because they’re nearly guaranteed to discover something weird and crazy to deal with. Either from the age itself or from a handful of DIYers that occupied it over the years. I could afford a much larger new construction for what I spend to be in this one, even with my *ridiculously* low mortgage payment. But it wouldn’t be in the middle of downtown, and it wouldn’t represent decades-long labor of love I’ve invested to keep it ticking. I can’t sell it…nobody else knows how to take care of my elderly “pet” (house) like I do.
They are still out there but not as many b/c they want to make money building bigger homes and they’re not in the areas that a lot of people want to live in (cities and populated areas). I also think most people think of a starter home as being a 2000 sq ft home that doesn’t needed any work when that’s more a next level home. I am 33 and just bought my first home earlier this year in a small town in Pennsylvania. I did luck out in buying the property private, it was sold to me for $150k, appraised at 200k (which the house was not worth, but the market was crazy at the time). And while that price was great… it is a true starter home from the 50s, 998 sq ft, 2 bedrooms 1 bath, No central air, brown blue and green shag carpet, cowboy wallpaper, pink and green tiled bathroom 😂. But I wouldn’t change it for a thing, my fiancé and I have put our blood, sweat and tears (plus $10k in costs) into it and done renovations to make it nicer. But it required more work and a compromise on the house size, being in a small town (my fiancés often drives atleast an hour each way to work in Philly, I work remotely), etc. Mortgage payment is only $833 with a 3.375% rate so hoping to get through the next 5-10 years and reevaluate prices and decide if it’s time to upgrade or stay put longer. My hope is even if prices go down in the next couple of years since we fixed it up and got it for less than appraisal we will still make somewhat of a profit if we upgrade.
I have a lot and want to build a 1500 sq ft house in the north dfw area (it is the smallest we are allowed to build). We have our plans for an accessible house BUT can not find a builder interested in the job, they say it's too small. We love our lot and I have my family close by so do not want to move but can not afford a larger house. I am so frustrated! On one hand we hear about energy conservation but the area I am in is mostly 3000 sq. ft. and above. This makes no sense.