There's no way. Most of the value of housing in expensive areas is the land itself, not the cost of the building.
How long does it take to raise a house?
For 580k I could hire 2 skilled men and 3 undocumented immigrants for a year.
Something isn't right.
Sounds like southern california done fucked themselves with over-regulating that stuff.
A single Ritcher 5.8 quake in Virginia in 2011 caused $300 million in damage and disrupted utilities for days in 12 states. A series of earthquakes in 2019 (6.4, 5.4, and 7.1) in California caused so little damage that it's hard to find a tally. Power was knocked in some cities and restored within hours.
Yes, CA construction is more expensive. But it's also stronger and more resilient than the cheap crap in the county next to you.
This myth of zoning being the only factor is maddening. It's almost like the California folks think their housing market is the only one. Plenty of jurisdictions have loose zoning laws and we still see skyrocketing property values. There's interest rates and inflation to consider.
The cold hard truth is: when a bunch of people all want to live in the same areas, housing is going to be expensive. There's no way around it.
I expect it to drop to below $200k here once they finish rebuilding the thousand or so homes one of our recent wildfires took out.
Sure it wouldn't go for closer to $1.5M?