What is wrong with north american housing?

[Sarra]

Every time I've seen this thread's title, the little voice in my head says "It's because that's where the USA is located." o.o;

 

Well, there's things other than WW3 to worry about. Last summer, 2,500 homes burned down in the county I live in, even the concrete homes were toast. Most of the housing that burned down was manufactured or straight up trailer park housing. Manufactured homes leave behind puddles of melted metal after they burn.

[Bombastinator]

5 hours ago, Sarra said:

Every time I've seen this thread's title, the little voice in my head says "It's because that's where the USA is located." o.o;

 

Well, there's things other than WW3 to worry about. Last summer, 2,500 homes burned down in the county I live in, even the concrete homes were toast. Most of the housing that burned down was manufactured or straight up trailer park housing. Manufactured homes leave behind puddles of melted metal after they burn.

That was the implication of the title I think.  a “why is something the way I say it is” sort of thing. 
 

If the majority of homes that burn are manufactured, it may be an issue of either different safety laws, or different insuring.  Is there perhaps more reason to set one kind alight on purpose?   It’s a pretty big disparity. Manufactured homes are relatively new and relatively rare.

[WkdPaul]

On 5/14/2021 at 12:07 AM, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

For a second I thought you meant our housing crisis. I'm disappointed. 

Same, also the OP said somewhere that houses here look so cheaply made that someone could break into a house with a jigsaw ... can't wait for them to learn about windows and glass !

 

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Same, also the OP said somewhere that houses here look so cheaply made that someone could break into a house with a jigsaw ... can't wait for them to learn about windows and glass !

 

That'd be the kind of thing you see on the news, some moron with a jigsaw trying to cut their way into a house, get's caught red handed, or ends up injuring themselves because they cut through a live wire or glass or something xD

[Donut417]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

et's caught red handed, or ends up injuring themselves because they cut through a live wire or glass or somethin

Maybe in Canada, in the US that could result in some lead poisoning if you catch my drift.  

[WkdPaul]

Just now, Donut417 said:

Maybe in Canada, in the US that could result in some lead poisoning if you catch my drift.  

Canada would be lung cancer because of the asbestos if it's an old house !

[Sarra]

3 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

If the majority of homes that burn are manufactured, it may be an issue of either different safety laws, or different insuring.  Is there perhaps more reason to set one kind alight on purpose?   It’s a pretty big disparity. Manufactured homes are relatively new and relatively rare.

By 'manufactured', I meant 'with wheels under them'. Mobile home parks, and RV parks.

 

The biggest 'influence' was the massive drought, then the two arson fires that were started on a day with high winds.

 

The result of the fire is that there is no housing available here. I was looking for an apartment under $800/month, and all I can find are 'housing wanted' ads. There's a wait list that is months long for $1200/month housing. And the drought just turned the intensity up to 11 this year.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Sarra said:

By 'manufactured', I meant 'with wheels under them'. Mobile home parks, and RV parks.

 

The biggest 'influence' was the massive drought, then the two arson fires that were started on a day with high winds.

 

The result of the fire is that there is no housing available here. I was looking for an apartment under $800/month, and all I can find are 'housing wanted' ads. There's a wait list that is months long for $1200/month housing. And the drought just turned the intensity up to 11 this year.

Ah it’s become a term that doesn’t apply to just trailers anymore.  New tech has made various types of modular as well as 3d printed a thing.  I DO know there are major differences in code between trailers and stick built houses in the US.  One big one is the minimum ceiling height isnt 8 feet which is actually a fire thing believe it or not.

 

I don’t know what area you’re in but a fire damage driven housing shortage is sort of custom made for manufactured housing in all its types.  The stuff goes up FAST.  Is it just housing specifically or places to put it as well?

Edited May 17, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Sarra]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Ah it’s become a term that doesn’t apply to just trailers anymore.  New tech has made various types of modular as well as 3d printed a thing.  I DO know there are major differences in code between trailers and stick built houses in the US.  One big one is the minimum ceiling height isnt 8 feet which is actually a fire thing believe it or not.

Yeah. We're talking about cheap housing. There's basically no regulation on where it can be built, so it seems to be endemic. Modular housing is becoming more popular, but the areas effected by the fire last year were mostly trailer parks.

 

I have yet to see if a final report has been released, but the rumors were that the initial fire was started by a suicide where a person used a propane bottle to 'blow himself up'. A second fire, which was caused by a known criminal, was started in the path of the first fire, and it caused the damage to be increased.

 

The fire came close to burning down the town, and people were evacuating.

 

All while a second town suffered more than 3 more arson fire, most of which burned grass and a greenway. I think 3 people were killed by the fire last summer, including the initial fire starter and a 'suspicious' transient death.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Sarra said:

Yeah. We're talking about cheap housing. There's basically no regulation on where it can be built, so it seems to be endemic. Modular housing is becoming more popular, but the areas effected by the fire last year were mostly trailer parks.

 

I have yet to see if a final report has been released, but the rumors were that the initial fire was started by a suicide where a person used a propane bottle to 'blow himself up'. A second fire, which was caused by a known criminal, was started in the path of the first fire, and it caused the damage to be increased.

 

The fire came close to burning down the town, and people were evacuating.

 

All while a second town suffered more than 3 more arson fire, most of which burned grass and a greenway. I think 3 people were killed by the fire last summer, including the initial fire starter and a 'suspicious' transient death.

There was a second paragraph that got added (sorry.  I write something then I read it and fix it.) 

 

If homes are expensive but land is cheap, manufactured housing of some type may be a solution to think about.  Shipping container housing apparently isn’t one unfortunately.  They come out just a bit too small when done up as inhabitable space.  Most “shipping container buildings” turn out to be just regular buildings covered with pieces of shipping containers.  Worse than useless.

[Tristerin]

Go to Florida, most things are built with cinder blocks.  

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Go to Florida, most things are built with cinder blocks.  

swamps do tend to be fire resistant. My memory is something like half of Florida was originally swampland.

[Tristerin]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

swamps do tend to be fire resistant. My memory is something like half of Florida was originally swampland.

Hurricane resistance, cheap to boot (as explained to me, could be to do with the land type as well)

[mikeyw64]

I'm in the UK and If I had the money for a self build then there are now many wood framed homes available to buy many brought in from Germany,Sweden and even North America.

For speed and ease of build these tend to come prefabricated .

Also , and this is a nod to the OP , “The timber frame itself is normally “guaranteed” by the manufacturer for various periods ranging from 10 to 40 years. It is a commonly perceived opinion within the industry that 25 –30 years is a reasonably expected life span for a softwood timber framed building. This is the same period as the average length of mortgage. No one would buy a leasehold property with 30 years left on the lease.”

Should also be noted there are many wood framed homes in the UK (as well as places like Germany)  that are several hundred years old, key difference being unlike modern softwood framed they were built of hard woods such as Oak.

Other things to take into consideration are the rows of terraced houses we have in the UK. One reason for historically building with bricks is to avoid situations like the great fire of London.

That said I live in a brick built house that was built in 1824



 

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, mikeyw64 said:

I'm in the UK and If I had the money for a self build then there are now many wood framed homes available to buy many brought in from Germany,Sweden and even North America.

For speed and ease of build these tend to come prefabricated .

Also , and this is a nod to the OP , “The timber frame itself is normally “guaranteed” by the manufacturer for various periods ranging from 10 to 40 years. It is a commonly perceived opinion within the industry that 25 –30 years is a reasonably expected life span for a softwood timber framed building. This is the same period as the average length of mortgage. No one would buy a leasehold property with 30 years left on the lease.”

Should also be noted there are many wood framed homes in the UK (as well as places like Germany)  that are several hundred years old, key difference being unlike modern softwood framed they were built of hard woods such as Oak.

Other things to take into consideration are the rows of terraced houses we have in the UK. One reason for historically building with bricks is to avoid situations like the great fire of London.

That said I live in a brick built house that was built in 1824



 

Brick is traditionally more fire resistant but less earthquake resistant.  Bricks with holes in them can have rebar put through to combat that, so more earthquake resistant but less insulative.  There are always trade offs.  It’s why there are many ways to do buildings.  
 

the UK wouldn’t be a place I would think of for cheap land of course.

[mikeyw64]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 

the UK wouldn’t be a place I would think of for cheap land of course.

It's not ( I don't think but I could be wrong lol) .

An acre of basic farmland is  between £12-15k (approx US$17-21k)  per acre(43, 560 square feet) doubling or more if it has planning permission to build homes on.

NB a typical developer in the UK would put anywhere between 12 & 20 2/3 bedroomed homes on a 1 acre plot depending on the market they are aiming for

[mikeyw64]

21 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Brick is traditionally more fire resistant but less earthquake resistant.  Bricks with holes in them can have rebar put through to combat that, so more earthquake resistant but less insulative.  There are always trade offs.  It’s why there are many ways to do buildings.  
 

the UK wouldn’t be a place I would think of for cheap land of course.

Just as a quick and dirty comparison this is the estate agents (realtors) listing fro my property from when we bought it in 2018 (and yes I am aware it has my address on)

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/4-baxters-row/hindley-green/wigan/wn2-4ud/46714948/

This is a comparable sized property  in your neck of the woods currently on the market

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1111-2nd-Ave-NW-Austin-MN-55912/117541632_zpid/

[Monkey Dust]

1 hour ago, Tristerin said:

Go to Florida, most things are built with cinder blocks.  

I'd guess the damp would rot out a timber building really quickly.

[Tristerin]

6 minutes ago, Monkey Dust said:

I'd guess the damp would rot out a timber building really quickly.

Hurricane winds as well

[Monkey Dust]

59 minutes ago, mikeyw64 said:

It's not ( I don't think but I could be wrong lol) .

An acre of basic farmland is  between £12-15k (approx US$17-21k)  per acre(43, 560 square feet) doubling or more if it has planning permission to build homes on.

NB a typical developer in the UK would put anywhere between 12 & 20 2/3 bedroomed homes on a 1 acre plot depending on the market they are aiming for

New builds in the UK are ridiculously small. One of my mates lives in a new-ish build, early 2000's I think. I have no idea how he, is wife and little kid functions in there, no storage space anywhere, bedrooms you can only just fit a bed in, and nothing else, and a kitchen diner than only has room for a tiny table. And it is worth somewhere around £280K because Bristol.

 

I will happily nominate the UK as having the smallest, shittiest, housing in the developed world, as well as being some of the most expensive.     

[mikeyw64]

1 minute ago, Monkey Dust said:

And it is worth somewhere around £280K because Bristol.

 

Nothing special about Bristol , that’s only slightly above the average price in the UK

[Monkey Dust]

3 minutes ago, mikeyw64 said:

Nothing special about Bristol , that’s only slightly above the average price in the UK

Average house prices in Bristol are high relative to similar-ish sized cites outside the south-east, and crucially, high relative to average wages in Bristol. There are definitely places in the UK that have it worse though.

 

I wonder if house price will decline over the next couple of decades as the baby boomer generation reach 'average life expectancy', this combined with low birth rates, could cause a population decline and therefore a reduction in the demand for housing. Though I guess that's another thread entirely.  

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, mikeyw64 said:

Just as a quick and dirty comparison this is the estate agents (realtors) listing fro my property from when we bought it in 2018 (and yes I am aware it has my address on)

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/4-baxters-row/hindley-green/wigan/wn2-4ud/46714948/

This is a comparable sized property  in your neck of the woods currently on the market

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1111-2nd-Ave-NW-Austin-MN-55912/117541632_zpid/

Thats not my neck of the woods. Austin is way way out.  Try minneapolis metro area.  Austin might even be considered that these days.  Austin is surrounded by farmland.  It had a major covid outbreak but that was mostly because there were meat packin plant out there and the owners wouldn’t let the workers distance.  Different place.

Edited May 17, 2021 by Bombastinator

[mikeyw64]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Thats not my neck of the woods. Austin is way way out.  Try minneapolis metro area.  Austin might even be considered that these days.  Austin is surrounded by farmland.

as in at least the same state lol

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, mikeyw64 said:

Just as a quick and dirty comparison this is the estate agents (realtors) listing fro my property from when we bought it in 2018 (and yes I am aware it has my address on)

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/4-baxters-row/hindley-green/wigan/wn2-4ud/46714948/

This is a comparable sized property  in your neck of the woods currently on the market

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1111-2nd-Ave-NW-Austin-MN-55912/117541632_zpid/

Both of those prices (even after converting to CAD) are vastly cheaper than even a 1bedroom Condo in Southern Ontario.