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Comment by computerphage | Hacker News Reader

What about other years? 1980? 1970? I would love to see this data over time.

> homes today are substantially larger

Is there any availability of smaller homes in actual markets? If I'm a buyer in the market do I even have the option to buy a cheap smaller home?

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No, you have the option of buying a condominium apartment in most cases.

Here in the Philadelphia urban real estate market —- which has no shortage of reclaimable housing —- the break-even point for builders is about triple the value of the existing homes. No current resident can afford to buy one, so single family homes get converted into tiny “luxury” condos.

[Edit: there are city subsidized ‘tiny-housing’ developments but these are more for welfare recipients than regular buyers.]

The same thing is happening here in Austin. Developers are buying up older properties, demolishing them, and then splitting the lot into 2 or 3 sections and building smaller "modern" homes/condos.

This is because small and micro sized units are literally outlawed by many local zoning laws country-wide.

This is one of the perverse effects of limits on new construction. Since builders can only build so much, they naturally focus on the high-end where profits are fattest. In a well-functioning market there is only so much demand for luxury housing so they would also build smaller, less expensive stuff as well, but they can't

Since 1978 at least [0], not sure how much data you'll get further back.

[0]: https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-prices/

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