America, Take Note: New Zealand Has Figured Out A Way To Bring Down Home Prices

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

That's sad if true. You're talking like the urban core like it's the farthest suburb.

The truth is that not everybody thinks the same way. Some people already have one car (many of these have a single adult resident). The only question is how many. I bet the number without a car is over zero.

Why not give people the option? Let the market decide?

The vast majority have a car or want one and the city is built with that in mind. Even dense(r) areas. The people living in these big expensive inner loop townhouses drive and they want a place to park. If they have one car, there's extra storage and a place for visitors to park.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by JManc

The vast majority have a car or want one and the city is built with that in mind. Even dense(r) areas. The people living in these big expensive inner loop townhouses drive and they want a place to park. If they have one car, there's extra storage and a place for visitors to park.

Even if that's true, why shouldn't people get a choice?

This isn't theory. All of this works really well in many places, including non-urban ones. My city is a "tweener" and townhouses rarely have more than one space.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

Even if that's true, why shouldn't people get a choice?

This isn't theory. All of this works really well in many places, including non-urban ones. My city is a "tweener" and townhouses rarely have more than one space.

I think if you were car free (by choice) you would opt to live in a more transit friendly neighborhood which 95% of these townhouse developments aren't. They replaced existing post war inner ring suburbs. Unless you're ok with the bus which most aren't. At least within that socioeconomic group. Also, developer probably not going to narrow their market potential by building something with no off street parking and in Houston, resale options are limited. Houston just isn't there yet. It's a car city through and through and even in the densest parts. I've been to Seattle, you can't compare the two.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

A house is a safety net. Adult kids can live there rent free with parents in their 20s and save a lot more money

A house is a liability. I own two of them and had to do about $40,000 in repairs in 2022. I probably need to do about another $20,000 on the rental in the next year or two, plus there are huge trees that need to come down at both. I got an estimate of $5,500 to bring down just one of them. It's still standing there, waiting to get struck by lightning and damage the neighbor's house.

An adult child *can* live rent free if their parents let them, but you have to have parents who actually let them (not an option in the culture I was raised in). But the problem is that the freeloading adult child ends up working *less* than they could. Almost nobody in such a fortuitous situation works 80+ hours between two or more jobs to save up the most money possible. They get home from their one job and start playing video games.

I am skeptical that working 80~ hours is as easy to do in New Zealand as it is in the United States, given its small population and simple economy. By comparison, in any US city of 2 million or more, there are scads of warehouses and restaurants where ordinary people can work weekend and night shifts and save thousands per month above the income from their primary job.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Fix the zoning,

Zoning is irrelevant. Lending actually dictates what is built.

encourage incentives to build,

Like legalizing child labor.

You can't "fight" for a "living wage" on one hand but then complain about the high cost of new construction and maintenance.

cut political opposition and local opposition and bar foreign buyers on buying properties in areas with low inventory... and we might see some change.

The high costs of popular coastal areas has been a boon for the interior. Any American has infinite choices in finding a place to live without having to to leave the country. That isn't the case for many of the world's small countries like New Zealand.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by mhays

Even if that's true, why shouldn't people get a choice?

No one is forced to live somewhere.....

This isn't theory. All of this works really well in many places, including non-urban ones. My city is a "tweener" and townhouses rarely have more than one space.

No...... you aren't really representative of what people want. Not saying you are wrong, just an outlier who most likely lives in a very outlier American "tweener" city.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by mhays

Houston also demands two(!) parking spaces in each of those houses. Even in urban areas.

Which is kinda just the wrong thing to focus on.... and is just really a way to bash Houston....

Guess what..... allow a variety of the housing people want that is where people want it to be built.... but skip the whole minimum parking requirements. Savvy?

[mhays]

So you're saying people should get a choice in Houston...? It feels like we're agreeing here.

As for "bashing" Houston, I'm expressing confidence in it, and others are saying "lol, no."

[JManc]

Even if you didn't own a car, owning a SFH in Houston with no off street parking would be an albatross and have limited resale options.

[mhays]

I'm mainly talking about one space per house vs. two. Though of course with a big reduction in construction cost and therefore sale price (or more square footage), some people would jump at zero too.

Either way, you keep providing only personal reasons in a discussion that's about choice and freedom.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

I'm mainly talking about one space per house vs. two. Though of course with a big reduction in construction cost and therefore sale price (or more square footage), some people would jump at zero too.

Either way, you keep providing only personal reasons in a discussion that's about choice and freedom.

You can find a house with a single stall garage with one parking space but they are older. They tend to be smaller but no one builds them anymore because most households are two incomes requiring two cars.

[Bailey]

For housing, Houston has a mix of different development types going on right now.

here are some examples:


Fairfield Waugh

c/o hindesky on HAIF






Modera Waugh

c/o hindesky on HAIF








Hanover Buffalo Bayou

c/o hindesky on HAIF












Residences on Westheimer

c/o hindesky on HAIF










Mimosa Terrace

c/o hindesky on HAIF






London House

c/o hindesky on HAIF

[Obadno]

New Zealand has 5 million people. What works in a small homogenous wealthy nation is not going to work in a 350-million-person diverse continental pseudo empire like the USA.

Im sorry its just not

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Obadno

New Zealand has 5 million people. What works in a small homogenous wealthy nation is not going to work in a 350-million-person diverse continental pseudo empire like the USA.

Im sorry its just not

New Zealand is not homogenous.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

New Zealand is not homogenous.

i think he means in that its small and they are all nz’ers.

meanwhile, we apparantly have a gazillion ‘illegals’, untold cultists screaming for fascist sedition, and flags of all places flying around town with nary a usa flag in sight. so yeah, not so easy to get concensus here.

[SnowFire]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

New Zealand is not homogenous.

uhhh its pretty heavily white+euro.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by SnowFire

uhhh its pretty heavily white+euro.

It's at least 15% Indigenous (mostly Maori), if not more at this point. This is a much larger Indigenous population share than the US, Canada or Australia.

[edale]

The thing I don't understand about the 'housing crisis' that every place in North America is apparently experiencing is why it's happening now, and wasn't a 'thing' until recently. We're in a time where people are having fewer kids than previous generations, and average household sizes are declining. The US as a whole has been growing at a sub 1% rate since the early 2000s, and prior to that, it was growing considerably faster. Central cities, many of which were left to rot during the 80s-2000s (when there was no mention of a housing crisis), have been reinvested in and reactivated. Whole neighborhoods that were off the table for middle class people for decades are now viable, desirable places again. Basically every downtown has seen dramatic population growth. Single family homes continue to be built on the fringe of basically every metro. "New" cities, like Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, etc. have grown into huge metros over the past half century. So...why again are we in a housing crisis?

Is it a matter of demographics? Boomers have aged and are holding on to their homes? Has immigration increased in the past ~10 years? Or could it be that Millennials have been screwed, and are making comparatively way less than previous generations? Maybe it's less of a housing crisis and more of an issue with a generation that's been served a shitty economic hand. I just don't get it. And I don't think we should all have to live like sardines to fix this 'crisis'. If zoning wasn't an issue for housing affordability in the past, why is it suddenly being seen as the boogeyman now?

[mhays]

#1? Homes are far more ambitious today -- far bigger, more complex systems, etc. Some of this translates to more labor. These tend to be decently-paying jobs. We could pay construction people less (bad idea) or go back to families of five living in small bungalows (1,200 sf used to be normal). On the apartment side we could living in smaller homes as well...much of the world lives in what we consider micros. (I'm not saying this is ideal, but it might be economically necessary for many people, and jurisdictions should allow more freedom here.)

#2 in some cities would be cheaper land on a per-unit basis. We need to zone for at least a few decades of growth (ideally via infill/densification primarily imo) to make this happen.

#3 would be process. Faster entitlements and building permits, with relative certainty of approval in the end.

[Crawford]

Point 1, especially, resonates. The postwar U.S. was already the most affluent society in global history, yet middle-class people were living in basic 900-square foot bungalows with four kids. Now even young, childless couples don't want the bungalows. They want a fully updated move-in teardown, minimum 2,000 ft.

Even urban living has heightened expectations. When I moved to NYC around 2000, it was still normal to have affluent people in smallish apartments with minimal building amenities, and no in-unit w-d. Nowadays, even less luxurious apartment buildings are built with children's playroom, conference rooms, gyms, in-unit w-d, quartz or marble countertops, luxury appliances, all standard.

I never heard of Subzero fridges till like 20 years ago. Now they're almost expected in nicer housing. That's a 20k+ fridge where the 2-3k fridge would have been fine for affluent households of an earlier generation.