Bingo! It’s not impossible to find reasonably affordable, older (often more interesting) houses in settled neighborhoods if you’re willing to look. They may not have all the amenities of new construction, but they may be quieter and better built.
Also, Disneyfied suburban neighborhoods often aren’t so pleasant after all. They may have nosy homeowners associations, stultified architecture, or be far from basic amenities like grocery stores.
I know. We recently relocated from one of them near Raleigh, NC, to prepare for retirement close to family in Pueblo, CO (the Pittsburgh of the West!). We live in a 1,100-sf adobe house built in 1940 around the corner from an 1880s mansion built by a mill owner. Our street has apartments, houses converted into professional offices, a small park, and a museum. The main library is seven blocks away.
The Pueblo house was listed for 2/3 of what we received for our place in Raleigh.
We can drive anywhere in town for about the same commitment of time it took us to get to the nearest supermarket in Raleigh.
Yes to all this! And without a ton of kids or multiple people working from home all the time, 1,100sf is sufficient and even quite comfortable for most couples. Our first house was right about 1000sf when we bought (2 bed, 1 bath), and then we finished about 225ish more sf in the basement for home office space. Our second house is about 2,500sf, but we also have three kids now and two people working from home nearly full-time.
While I agree with the major portion of your argument (both affirmations and critique), your critique has some blindspots and oversimplification. It isn’t only coastal towns that have inflated housing costs. Even before Hurricane Helene hit our area—Western North Carolina—we experienced housing crisis and inflated costs in an area where salaries just don’t match. The market here has been driven up by retirees who snatch “starter” homes out from under singles and families because these homes are the same size for those wanting to downsize as they retire. The 3/2 home tended to have been the kind purchased for second homes and Airbnb type properties as well. The result? A dearth of properties for the average family or those just starting out.
Here are some further details: My husband is 57, I’m 47, and our daughters are 20, 18, and 10. We are trying to live near an aging parent who has been established in this area for almost 2 decades. We moved here to get a job that paid 80k/year (later lost during the pandemic). 80k is well above average for our area, but affording a home and the things necessary to raise three girls kept things tight even on that income. We finally purchased a home in 2022. We live in a rural part of Canton (where a 115+ year old paper mill just closed down), 30 minutes outside of the city. Our main “industry” is now tourism on top of the long tenure of agriculture in the area.
Nothing is “walkable” here. “Downtown” Canton where we have a coffee shop, a couple of schools and restaurants, grocery stores, and a library is 7 minutes’ drive north. Our home is under 1400 sqft (on 1.25 acres), was built in 1953, renovated in 2014, and cost us $339k in 2022. It’s estimated worth hovers at around 400k. We have 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom.
My sister and her husband are in their late thirties. Their family of 5 purchased their first home in Manhattan…Montana—about 15 mins outside of Bozeman. Their 4/2 3100sqft home was built in 1907 and NEVER renovated. They purchased it for over half a million dollars in 2020. Admittedly, their neighborhood is slightly more walkable than ours. Check Zillow for housing prices there—even more inflated than WNC.
My brother and his wife are in their mid 40s. Their family of 5 rent a 4/2 townhouse for $2500/month near my aging parents in Castle Rock, Colorado. This is a HIGHLY walkable area. They work 1.5 jobs (they still have young children). They can’t get into the housing market. The “value” of my parents’ 2100sqft 4 bedroom/2 bath home (also built in the 50s and renovated once in the 2010s) has skyrocketed in the last 5 years. They have received 3 offers (apparently people retiring from places like California) averaging 3/4 of a million dollars—25% more than its estimated worth on real estate apps). It’s not even on the market. This type of ability to pay more than a house’s market value by those moving into attractive locations drive up costs and drive families away from their support network.
I respect your writing and thinking. I wonder if more research could provide a more complete picture of the housing situation and its varied factors/the varied pressures on families (only a cursory glimpse provided above). Or, argue with me with data that you didn’t include in your essay. I welcome the sharpening.
Starter homes are in short supply -- to the point that retirees looking to age in place can sometimes corner the market, as you describe -- significantly because building codes make it unprofitable for developers to build small. The overhead of permitting, lot size minimums, and so on all but forces developers to build large and expensive houses. This leaves too few options at the bottom end of the SFH market, even in places without a glut of comparatively cash-rich retirees. The result is that some people (like you) pay through the nose to get one of the few smaller homes available, while others (like your brother) can't swing it and so keep renting. In both cases, I think the single biggest thing we can do is change laws to make it viable for developers to build small, dense SFHs and, crucially, turn a profit.
Of course, that change wouldn't fix everything for everyone. There will always be places (Manhattan, an island, is the most extreme example) where natural constraints and extremely high demand for attractive local features or economic opportunities will drive up prices. There will be sudden market swings from surprise events like COVID or factory closures or a new oilfield. But in general, in most places, I sincerely think making small SFH buildable and profitable again would make a huge difference.
I hope what you are saying is true about starter housing availability broadly. Here in Western WA, everything has shot out of reach in the last few years.
The problem is that the reasonably priced not-new starter homes are not where the jobs are. With remote work opportunities declining, this is a serious issue. Yes if I take a job where incomes are lower, my house would be cheaper, but everything else costs the same or more. That’s why I came to CA in the first place, yeah my house costs more but food and clothes and cars and most other things (aside from gasoline and electricity) cost the same or less than it did back east. And even though I pay more per kWh for electricity here, I use way less of it due to the climate.
Wow. This post got a lot of commentary. I serve on the Frederick County Sustainability Commission in MD. I am an hour from DC and take two prayer watches, 3 hours each, at a prayer house on Capitol Hill. I follow sustainable development. It is a moving target and a new trend in zoning is form-based development which is attempting to make it more "organic" and flexible. Frederick City is wonderful in blending historic areas with new development focused on single family, town house style development. It is our best attempt to mimic communities. Yet we are still a bit a commuter community for work. I enjoy the place I live and am grateful for opportunities to serve the community in Jesus' name. I enjoy this on-line community.
Bingo! It’s not impossible to find reasonably affordable, older (often more interesting) houses in settled neighborhoods if you’re willing to look. They may not have all the amenities of new construction, but they may be quieter and better built.
Also, Disneyfied suburban neighborhoods often aren’t so pleasant after all. They may have nosy homeowners associations, stultified architecture, or be far from basic amenities like grocery stores.
I know. We recently relocated from one of them near Raleigh, NC, to prepare for retirement close to family in Pueblo, CO (the Pittsburgh of the West!). We live in a 1,100-sf adobe house built in 1940 around the corner from an 1880s mansion built by a mill owner. Our street has apartments, houses converted into professional offices, a small park, and a museum. The main library is seven blocks away.
The Pueblo house was listed for 2/3 of what we received for our place in Raleigh.
We can drive anywhere in town for about the same commitment of time it took us to get to the nearest supermarket in Raleigh.
We love it! Thanks for pointing this out.
Yes to all this! And without a ton of kids or multiple people working from home all the time, 1,100sf is sufficient and even quite comfortable for most couples. Our first house was right about 1000sf when we bought (2 bed, 1 bath), and then we finished about 225ish more sf in the basement for home office space. Our second house is about 2,500sf, but we also have three kids now and two people working from home nearly full-time.
While I agree with the major portion of your argument (both affirmations and critique), your critique has some blindspots and oversimplification. It isn’t only coastal towns that have inflated housing costs. Even before Hurricane Helene hit our area—Western North Carolina—we experienced housing crisis and inflated costs in an area where salaries just don’t match. The market here has been driven up by retirees who snatch “starter” homes out from under singles and families because these homes are the same size for those wanting to downsize as they retire. The 3/2 home tended to have been the kind purchased for second homes and Airbnb type properties as well. The result? A dearth of properties for the average family or those just starting out.
Here are some further details: My husband is 57, I’m 47, and our daughters are 20, 18, and 10. We are trying to live near an aging parent who has been established in this area for almost 2 decades. We moved here to get a job that paid 80k/year (later lost during the pandemic). 80k is well above average for our area, but affording a home and the things necessary to raise three girls kept things tight even on that income. We finally purchased a home in 2022. We live in a rural part of Canton (where a 115+ year old paper mill just closed down), 30 minutes outside of the city. Our main “industry” is now tourism on top of the long tenure of agriculture in the area.
Nothing is “walkable” here. “Downtown” Canton where we have a coffee shop, a couple of schools and restaurants, grocery stores, and a library is 7 minutes’ drive north. Our home is under 1400 sqft (on 1.25 acres), was built in 1953, renovated in 2014, and cost us $339k in 2022. It’s estimated worth hovers at around 400k. We have 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom.
My sister and her husband are in their late thirties. Their family of 5 purchased their first home in Manhattan…Montana—about 15 mins outside of Bozeman. Their 4/2 3100sqft home was built in 1907 and NEVER renovated. They purchased it for over half a million dollars in 2020. Admittedly, their neighborhood is slightly more walkable than ours. Check Zillow for housing prices there—even more inflated than WNC.
My brother and his wife are in their mid 40s. Their family of 5 rent a 4/2 townhouse for $2500/month near my aging parents in Castle Rock, Colorado. This is a HIGHLY walkable area. They work 1.5 jobs (they still have young children). They can’t get into the housing market. The “value” of my parents’ 2100sqft 4 bedroom/2 bath home (also built in the 50s and renovated once in the 2010s) has skyrocketed in the last 5 years. They have received 3 offers (apparently people retiring from places like California) averaging 3/4 of a million dollars—25% more than its estimated worth on real estate apps). It’s not even on the market. This type of ability to pay more than a house’s market value by those moving into attractive locations drive up costs and drive families away from their support network.
I respect your writing and thinking. I wonder if more research could provide a more complete picture of the housing situation and its varied factors/the varied pressures on families (only a cursory glimpse provided above). Or, argue with me with data that you didn’t include in your essay. I welcome the sharpening.
Thanks, Kelsey. I would point you to the link to my older piece on the scarcity of start homes: https://web.archive.org/web/20210418023412/https://theweek.com/articles/977298/america-needs-more-starter-homes
Starter homes are in short supply -- to the point that retirees looking to age in place can sometimes corner the market, as you describe -- significantly because building codes make it unprofitable for developers to build small. The overhead of permitting, lot size minimums, and so on all but forces developers to build large and expensive houses. This leaves too few options at the bottom end of the SFH market, even in places without a glut of comparatively cash-rich retirees. The result is that some people (like you) pay through the nose to get one of the few smaller homes available, while others (like your brother) can't swing it and so keep renting. In both cases, I think the single biggest thing we can do is change laws to make it viable for developers to build small, dense SFHs and, crucially, turn a profit.
Of course, that change wouldn't fix everything for everyone. There will always be places (Manhattan, an island, is the most extreme example) where natural constraints and extremely high demand for attractive local features or economic opportunities will drive up prices. There will be sudden market swings from surprise events like COVID or factory closures or a new oilfield. But in general, in most places, I sincerely think making small SFH buildable and profitable again would make a huge difference.
I think it would make a huge difference…in the future. Hoping it happens.
I've come to realize my highest calling in life is to provide newsletter fodder for Bonnie.
Maybe parenting as a close second place.
lol
Great points in here. And your title is a reminder that in fact, zoning leads to dystopian hellscapes. 😉
Ty!
I hope what you are saying is true about starter housing availability broadly. Here in Western WA, everything has shot out of reach in the last few years.
The problem is that the reasonably priced not-new starter homes are not where the jobs are. With remote work opportunities declining, this is a serious issue. Yes if I take a job where incomes are lower, my house would be cheaper, but everything else costs the same or more. That’s why I came to CA in the first place, yeah my house costs more but food and clothes and cars and most other things (aside from gasoline and electricity) cost the same or less than it did back east. And even though I pay more per kWh for electricity here, I use way less of it due to the climate.
Wow. This post got a lot of commentary. I serve on the Frederick County Sustainability Commission in MD. I am an hour from DC and take two prayer watches, 3 hours each, at a prayer house on Capitol Hill. I follow sustainable development. It is a moving target and a new trend in zoning is form-based development which is attempting to make it more "organic" and flexible. Frederick City is wonderful in blending historic areas with new development focused on single family, town house style development. It is our best attempt to mimic communities. Yet we are still a bit a commuter community for work. I enjoy the place I live and am grateful for opportunities to serve the community in Jesus' name. I enjoy this on-line community.
Oh, I know downtown Frederick just a little bit. It's gotten really nice in recent years