Why is Housing so Unaffordable in so many cities?

[JManc]

^ Those last two look like the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. I actually like those particular kinds of housing. Most of the rest of the councils in London are hideous.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

There are a ton of single-family houses in the Midwest that were built 1920-1960 that have just one bathroom. This bathroom is variously on the first or second floor. The second floor is almost always in an attic space and so gets very hot during the summer. Sometimes the attic bedrooms are shaped in such a way that the bank doesn't recognize them as habitable space, which throws everything into disarray at closing time.

These homes were ignored from about 1970-2015. Now they're coming back into fashion because most people only have 1 or 2 kids so it's not tough to cram them in there. Also, they're often physically located just 1/2 mile from the very expensive neighborhoods with better homes.

Also, housing built from about 1930 onward (and yes, there were a lot of homes built during the Depression) tends to have modern wiring, plumbing, gas, etc. You tend to avoid the exotic problems that appear with 19th century and early 20th century homes.

Here's a better example than my first one...this one is listed for a mere $89k. The neighborhood is a B quality neighborhood. The same house in an A quality neighborhood would list for well over $200k.

https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/C...d-Twp-OH-45216

you know your midwestern housing. st. louis (and other midwestern cities that boomed early and had a ton of development inertia in the 30s) has a surprising amount of 1930-1939 housing on its fringes and in the pre-war suburbs and it’s really the best built stuff...steel i-beams under the floors, concrete foundations, but pre-war quality masonry and wall thicknesses. i almost bought a floor in a 1930s two-flat in an inner suburb...the thing was built like a bomb shelter. a previous house i owned was built in the 20s but was basically the same quality with steel i-beam supported floors excepting the limestone foundation. it’s like bulletproof housing...just needs kitchen updates and paint a lot of times.



zwillow.com


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beltstl.com

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by JManc

^ Those last two look like the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. I actually like those particular kinds of housing. Most of the rest of the councils in London are hideous.

Indeed, you can see what most London council/social housing looks like from listings on home swap sites like this one.

https://www.homeswapper.co.uk/Search...longitude=null

It's mostly not particularly beautiful but as you can also see the prices are much more reasonable than private sector rentals.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

Indeed, you can see what most London council/social housing looks like from listings on home swap sites like this one.

https://www.homeswapper.co.uk/Search...longitude=null

It's mostly not particularly beautiful but as you can also see the prices are much more reasonable than private sector rentals.

Those are amazing deals.

[Jonesy55]

Yeah, if you can get them. There's a multi year waiting list for social housing in many London boroughs I think even if you meet the eligibility criteria.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...-a3210171.html

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

you know your midwestern housing. st. louis (and other midwestern cities that boomed early and had a ton of development inertia in the 30s) has a surprising amount of 1930-1939 housing on its fringes and in the pre-war suburbs and it’s really the best built stuff...steel i-beams under the floors, concrete foundations, but pre-war quality masonry and wall thicknesses. i almost bought a floor in a 1930s two-flat in an inner suburb...the thing was built like a bomb shelter. a previous house i owned was built in the 20s but was basically the same quality with steel i-beam supported floors excepting the limestone foundation. it’s like bulletproof housing...just needs kitchen updates and paint a lot of times.

In the midwest the change from stone to concrete foundations occurred right at 1900, so it makes it pretty easy to date a house in an area where some is older and some is newer.

The big mess-up they did make in 1920s-30s housing were that the automobile garages were too narrow. A lot of them are just 8-9 feet wide, so completely useless for today's cars.

I live in an area where people dug garages into their basements -- no doubt at great expense -- back around 1920-1930. They're all those small doors and so by the 1950s they were useless.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

In the midwest the change from stone to concrete foundations occurred right at 1900, so it makes it pretty easy to date a house in an area where some is older and some is newer.

The big mess-up they did make in 1920s-30s housing were that the automobile garages were too narrow. A lot of them are just 8-9 feet wide, so completely useless for today's cars.

I live in an area where people dug garages into their basements -- no doubt at great expense -- back around 1920-1930. They're all those small doors and so by the 1950s they were useless.

in st. louis they waited until around 1930 before switching to concrete in most cases i've seen...although the interwar stone basements are much much better than any 19th century stone basement i've ever had.

i've seen that basement garage thing before, usually in the hilly pre-war areas of st. louis county (example: https://goo.gl/maps/DnbHqSy3vMM2) and not the much flatter city proper (i live in a pre-war suburb in the county where those garages are much more common) and i think it was a huge mistake, obviously. a lot of the small alley garages that were built are now getting replaced when the house is rehabbed and usually they become two car, which is good.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

in st. louis they waited until around 1930 before switching to concrete in most cases i've seen...

that seems odd. chicago seems to have changed over to concrete foundations around the turn of the century.

the house i grew up in was built in 1912 with a concrete foundation. our neighbor's house was built in 1888 with a stone foundation.

i wonder why st. louis lagged by 3 decades. easy and cheap access to a large quarry for good foundation stone?

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that seems odd. chicago seems to have changed over to concrete foundations around the turn of the century.

the house i grew up in was built in 1912 with a concrete foundation. our neighbor's house was built in 1888 with a stone foundation.

i wonder why st. louis lagged by 3 decades. easy and cheap access to a large quarry for good foundation stone?

My house here in Pittsburgh was built in either 1905 or 1908 (conflicting dates depending upon the source) and it has a stone foundation. I don't think Pittsburgh really turned to concrete foundations until the 1920s.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

A lot of them are just 8-9 feet wide, so completely useless for today's cars.

This is still the standard width per car in Chicago in 2018.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

This is still the standard width per car in Chicago in 2018.

yeah, the garage door for our parking space at our old condo was only 90" wide.

our mazda CX-5 is 83 inches wide including the mirrors.

that left about 3.5 inches of clearance on either side.

a tight fit for sure, but it was far from useless.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that seems odd. chicago seems to have changed over to concrete foundations around the turn of the century.

the house i grew up in was built in 1912 with a concrete foundation. our neighbor's house was built in 1888 with a stone foundation.

i wonder why st. louis lagged by 3 decades. easy and cheap access to a large quarry for good foundation stone?

i guess...st louis sits right on karst and is surrounded by endless supplies of exposed limestone cliffs in every direction (along with clay deposits for brick).

[Pedestrian]

London Breed took top honors today in San Francisco after former state Sen. Mark Leno conceded defeat after a nail-biting (Mayoral) election . . . .

Not only will Breed, a former acting mayor and president of the Board of Supervisors, be the first black woman elected to the city‘s highest office, she will also enter with the most pro-housing platform.

. . . Breed believes the city’s affordability crisis is driven mainly by a lack of housing supply.

“The housing crisis has grown visibly worse recently, but it is — at its core — the result of decades of bad housing policy in San Francisco and the Bay Area,” wrote Breed on Medium. “From 2010 to 2015, San Francisco created eight jobs for every home we built. Yes, eight jobs for every home.”

Her views on San Francisco’s dearth of housing stock had many constituents, as well as the city’s YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) group, firmly in Breed’s camp . . . .

(Laura Foote) Clark, (executive director of YIMBY Action) hopes the Breed administration will focus on upzoning the wealthiest low-density areas of the city, especially around transit, as well as strengthening tenant protections.

“Breed was alone among the candidates in supporting SB 827 (state Senate measure mandating upzoning of areas adjacent to transit hubs). . .

https://sf.curbed.com/2018/6/13/1746...by-win-housing

[jd3189]

Hopefully she gets things done while appealing to the NIMBYs and preservationists.

[dubu]

70% of people will live in cities in 2050, are 70% of us going to be rich?

[hauntedheadnc]

6 Reasons Housing Is About To Become Even More Unaffordable: A new report reveals rising rents and surging inequality — and it’s only going to get worse.

The reasons, according to the article, are:

1. Low-Cost Housing Is Disappearing From The Market

2. America Isn’t Building Enough Homes

3. America’s Cities Are Unaffordable

4. Racial Disparities Are Getting Worse

5. High Housing Costs Shift Money From The Young To The Old

6. Policies At Every Level Are Making It Worse