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Comment by whitemary | Hacker News Reader

> as the population ages, who is going to buy all the McMansions?

The McMansions will be unlivable by that point. They weren't built to last.

This is what people said about Levittown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown), the archetype for postwar suburban housing developments in the USA. They did wear out, but the owners fixed them. If the housing is still needed, it will be maintained and repaired and improved.

Despite the US's deficit in housing ever since, many millions of houses houses have in fact been abandoned. Please explain.

Also, Levittown construction and materials are not comparable in any meaningful way to McMansions.

> Despite the US's deficit in housing ever since, many millions of houses houses have in fact been abandoned. Please explain.

Sure. No one wants to live in those areas where the houses are being abandoned, or government regulation makes bringing them up to code financially non-viable.

This is a bit dramatic.

All buildings are depreciating assets. This was true before the idea of the McMansion existed.

It’s the land that is scarce and is the appreciating asset.

The truth of the matter is that any house that is around long enough gets repaired over time.

>It’s the land that is scarce and is the appreciating asset

May be appreciating. Depends on where it is. A lot of land in metro Detroit hasn't appreciated in certain timeframes. Nor on some barrier islands.

If it's an expensive neighborhood in a region with a growing economy then I would think the McMansions would be fine.

Not based on the one I’m living in. It’s the definition of lipstick on a pig. Serious fundamental problems with a nice looking exterior. It’s been nothing but problems for the last 8 years.

Could you elaborate on what problems occur on those houses versus normally sized ones? Framing? The foundation?

Every bathroom was finished with normal drywall instead of the water resistant stuff. The vents in the upstairs bathrooms just vented into the attic space leading to moisture issues in up there. There must also be an issue with either the framing or the foundation because we have the ceiling separating from the drywall in almost every room in the house in addition to cracks developing in the drywall. I know some amount of settling over time and cracks are sometimes normal, but I’ve never seen them this frequently. Our floors are also uneven and you can feel them moving as you walk across them.

In the bathrooms they also picked the cheapest bathroom fixtures imaginable. They looked decent at first, but it was also quickly corroded and the lights literally fell apart. We have one of those fancy three head shower setups and we discovered that the main shower head corroded and broke off inside the wall when our youngest innocently asked us why it was raining in the dining room. We also have water hammering issues when running the washing machine because they didn’t bother to put in a flow arrester.

On the exterior, our driveway and sidewalks were all laid with insufficiently packed base material. These gaps and buckles are reaching the point where we have to fix them or risk liability when the mailman trips over them. Our gutters were incorrectly installed and they have been slowly leaking down one corner of our house and we’ve found water damage in the basement due to this. The foundation in the garage also has done some settling because the stone work at the base has large cracks developed in it. In addition, our windows and doors are really just polite suggestions for the wind to stay outside because they picked such cheap options. You can literally feel a breeze through most of our windows.

I’m sure there were other minor things which I’m not thinking of, but the quality between our first house which cost 1/3rd of this house is night and day. The only thing the inspector found was the the cracks in the garage brick walls but those are a facade and the inspector told us it was cosmetic damage and the sidewalk was easily fixable via mud jacking. Those were issues we were willing to take on. There’s no way we would have bought the house if we’d known that there were so many issues. As we’ve been trying to address the issues we’ve been finding, we always seem to uncover another problem that needs to be fixed. Feels like a race we are losing.

Thanks for sharing, I'm sorry to hear about all the problems you're having.

I think a major issue is just water being the root of all evil for house problems and the bigger your house is, the more recent it was built, the more corners were cut. It's all compounded by contractors wanting to overcharge you if you're in an expensive neighborhood and not give you the time of day otherwise.

It's like you could just say, "let's just get rid of all this extra furniture and stuff and live within our means. The kids don't need that many toys." But then the argument falls on deaf ears and you wind up with the neverending complexities of redecorating, contractors, insurance claims and stress.

Agreed. But I'd like to perhaps interpret it a slightly different way. What if house construction was "branded". That is, aside from (possibly uninforced) local standards a company built homes AND committed to their quality.

Given how sloppy new home construction has become, perhaps buyers would trade less home for say 10 years of peace of mind? I realize long term guarantees are tough. Obviously. Nonetheless, the current shit-show seems to be begging for alternatives.

Home warranties were fairly common when purchasing. They are meant to cover things you don't find right away during the inspection. Unfortunately market forces, especially lately, have made these less available for purchasers as competition for houses is too high.

Sounds like it's a race to the bottom. No one can differentiate with better quality goods and work because no one is willing and able to do it.

The lower the price the better. Regardless how it'll cost you later, affect long term value, etc.

If anything it makes the argument to not buy new. Instead go for something in the 10 to 15 yr range that's had the structural bugs worked out but might need updated appliances.

While I understand social expectations run in cycles, families are smaller, costs higher, etc. McMansions had a moment. Unless there are reasonable ways to divide them (e.g., family w/ an apartment for older parent(s)) to me it seems unlikely that moment will happen again soon.

ENTIRE vinyl villages of McMansions will be unlivable. They aren't even built to last the standard 30y mortgage because the builders know the initial buyers will sell and move on. Cheapest possible 2x4's with worst insulation ever known, all covered up in plastic siding. But hey, it's 10k sq ft right?

> with worst insulation ever known,

What are you talking about?

Lots of "luxury" housing is made with crap materials by unskilled freelancers. There is a ton of skimping on hidden details like missing flashing around doors and windows. You can't trust any home built within the last 25 years.

I'm asking specifically what insulation product they are referring to because I'm unaware of any product that fits that description.

In my case, the insulation was mostly just air. There is zero insulation at all in my garage in a place with harsh winters and there is no insulation between my garage and the house. My attic also did not have insulation, but that one was cheaper and easier to resolve than all the wall cavities.

Have you checked what the building code in the area requires? If the builder was negligent and you're they first owner they may be liable.

Unfortunately we aren’t the first owners. I know some of the issues we are seeing is from shitty diy or contracting from the previous owner, but most of them are from the original construction. One example of shitty DIY is the hardwood floor on the main level that we are currently replacing. The newly installed floors were a bit lower than the original floors so they just covered all the gaps with corner round all around the baseboards. Looks super tacky. But is a fairly minor issue all things considered. We are replacing that with another layer of sub flooring and engineered wood floors to try to reduce the amount of movement you can feel in the floors.

That's a bit hyperbolic. Inspections are a thing, and modern houses are generally built just fine. And nobody uses plastic siding on a brand new house (well, almost nobody, you can probably find rare examples). A modern house uses hardieplank fibercement siding probably 99% of the time. These days vinyl siding is mostly a retrofit choice, not new construction.

The cheap 2x4s are the most significant point of failure. The houses will twist and warp to many extremes during their lifetimes. The first symptom of doors that won't open/shut properly usually shows in the first 10 years of these houses. In a 1920s home built with domestic timber, that process would take a lifetime. After 30 years, this contributes to all sorts of creaks and leaks. Repairs are questionable and don't last as long because the frame of the structure is unstable.

I had a suspicion you would be downvoted for telling the truth here :-). It's an unfortunate choice between being truthful and being popular.. As I understand it, part of the difference between US and Europe is that US has massive access to cheap lumber, which makes it very cost-effective to build with balloon framing, which is not much used in Europe. US saves a lot on construction this way, but it has consequences for durability.

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