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Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18265533

This often comes up as a "look how much cheaper housing used to be" discussion. Keep in mind things like gfci outlets, fire code, insulation requirements, electrical/plumbing inspectors, permits, etc weren't an issue back then.

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That stuff really isn't that expensive though, I mean it adds up, but the real cost is the multi levels of labor mark ups going through contractors for the labor to ultimately be done by someone with very little experience making very low wages.

You will have a "builder" who hires a GC, the GC will then hire subs. The subs will bring in crews and the crews are typically two guys with a truck and whoever they picked up at home Depot that morning.

Every one prices per job except the home Depot laborers that end up doing all the work and they get like $100 / $150 a day cash. But they are who is doing 90% of the work.

In the 40s when you hired someone to build a house they actually built the house, like would be out there sawing or even straight up milling the wood themselves.

Today almost no one that's experienced does new construction where they actually do work themselves. The actual quality workers are all in remodeling because the price to time/work/labor ratio is so much more profitable.

There is also just simple supply and demand in many areas of NA. There aren't enough houses to match demand, so developers don't even really need to focus all that much on cost control when building: you're already making a killing on the initial sale. A new home that sells for $1mil in a neighbourhood vs one that sold 2 years earlier for $700k is not wildly better made, at least $300k more; people are just willing to spend that much more for a limited supply.

The $700K purchase price two years ago is worth ~$800K now.

New construction homes are almost universally Value of Land + Cost to build structure + ~10%. The supply/demand aspect of new construction cost only factor into the value of the land, and how increased demand can cause increased labor/material costs.

It's not like real estate developers pull numbers out of a hat to determine how much to charge. Most areas will have several major developers in direct competition to attract new home buyers, and if their costs every get out of hand people will just start buying land and managing the build themselves.

What would you advocate to lower the cost of housing by 50%?

Personally I suspect the land cost is one huge part of why people don't build their own homes today. Today's version of the sears catalog home would be like "2 dozen people buy a small plot of land together in/near the city and build a condominium to share the land in a cost-effective way". But while random people can build a basic pre-fab home with lots of determination, they probably can't build a 5-over-1.

Single pane windows, lead pipe, lead paint, knob and tube electrical, no sump pumps, no drainage tile, no Tyvek, clay chimneys, poor insulation, poorly ventilated attics, creaky floors, etc. Old houses have a lot of inferior elements. Sure, the denser wood and some of the masonry or plasterwork is nice, but it ends there.

Single pane windows but windows made by hand. Lead pipe but instead of a dozen people in the pipe factory it's a few hundred. Things have gotten better but also much cheaper to produce. If we can't get 2 panes of glass for the price of 1 a hundred years ago something is wrong.

>Lead pipe but instead of a dozen people in the pipe factory it's a few hundred

You haven't been in a factory lately, or toured one from 100 years ago?

Its exactly opposite to how you say. Mechanization slimmed the employee count, then automation did it again, then again with everything going digital.

This is seen in all sorts of industries.

The plant I work in has loads of empty offices, former machine shops bereft of millwrights/used for storage), and only half the lockers in the change room are claimed, and that's after they carved out a locker room for female employees. And that's only a 50 year old place.

One night I was working alone, and the site labour supervisor was the only person I saw all night, as he stopped in a few times to check on how I was doing. I asked him how many people he had on site, and he said about 30, including he and I. Since then, when I work nights, I check up on people too. Its a big place. The population swells during the day, but most of it is contractors(like me) and office personnel. But the plant runs 24/7, as much as possible.

I've worked nights in another part of the plant, in finishing/warehouse/loading, and there's about seven people there overnight (and the same during the day), and only one (me) doing actual physical labour(and not hard stuff at all). Because product is mechanically wrapped, packaging is machine counted and printed these days, not hand lettered, moved around via conveyor and forklift, and loaded for shipping with machinery. Even closing the rail car doors is done with a machine.

Even 50-100 years ago, the world ran much more on muscle power and human eyes, and many more employees were needed.

I think you read my comment backwards. You are making my point. Industrialization should have made all those things both better and cheaper.

And that these building codes are actually expensive things, and that some - but probably not all - are worth it to the homebuyers.

Especially worth thinking about in the most extreme cases, like when it’s a state with very high housing costs (like California) and extensive mandates (like EV-ready wiring in all new single family homes). There are many who wouldn’t have chosen some of these specific tradeoffs!

Someone should do a study to see how many of these are still standing versus how many are not, and how modern hyper housing regulation might have influenced the outcome.

My guess is those Sears houses were more than good enough without all the added bureaucracy of today.

Generally speaking, old structures that are not up to code aren't just torn down because the code changed.

In fact very few code changes for residential buildings cause retroactive enforcement. Called “grandfathering” you’re allowed to continue to use a house that was legal when you built it.

There are often laws that say repairs beyond a certain point must bring it up to code, but minor repairs to keep it working are fine.

Now you may want to get it to code, but that’s another question.

For the framing/support that's probably true, but things like electrical are largely written in response to fires/shocks.

The house kits seemed to started falling out of fashion as society started deeming electricity an essential, though the timeframe also had other things like the depression/ww2 going on to cause issues with it too.

I tend to agree that we're past a point of optimal amount of bureaucracy in housing. I don't know that I'd go as far as saying these were more than good enough, though they are close.

Things like fire rated doors/drywall might not lower the likelihood you'll have a house fire, but they will give the occupants time to exit safely. Ditto for electrical breakers/gfci.

From the Tweet (article): "Between 1908 and 1940, Sears managed to sell over 70,000 DIY homes' and "Remarkably, almost 70% of these Sears DIY houses are still standing today." That would mean around 49,000 are still standing.

And I guarantee you 48,999 of those homes have been gutted to replace the lath+plaster, lead pipes, and knob+tube wiring. Timber isn't all there is to a good home.

a significant fraction of the houses in major cities in the northwest, particularly seattle, are these sears homes. there are entire blocks of them, built around 1920 by developers plotting out whole neighborhoods.

many have extensive renovations, others are essentially standing as-built. typically they are worth millions, but that's more about geography and zoning than the construction itself.

i have lived in a few, all with the original plaster, and a mix of original plumbing/electrical. generally i would say even the mostly-original ones were are some of the nicest places i've ever lived, but that's not saying much.

there is definitely a survivorship bias, but the ones still standing seem to have weathered the moisture well. much of the ~70/80s era construction i have seen seems to have fared worse, and the new construction i've seen is downright laughable.

As a person who grew up and still lives in and around Seattle, I agree with everything you've said. Only thing I would mention though is:

>typically they are worth millions

That might be just a more generality of single family homes in the Seattle area than a nod to their craftsmanship.

I think you’d be entirely surprised to discover how many have NOT been gutted. Most houses built in thy era still standing probably have original piping or wiring somewhere.

Lath & Plaster is still pretty common, they were usually built without insulation so retrofitting the knob & tube was actually pretty simple to do from the attic.

Bathrooms have usually been gutted though, if for nothing else than the common designs had windows in the bath/shower and pretty much guaranteed water damage in the wall.

We’re talking a house that is OVER 10x the price after adjusting for inflation. Does that not ring some bells financially in people’s heads? Or is the older generation just okay with this destruction of purchasing power for basic needs?

Very few individuals in the older generation are able to do anything about the situation. What would you advocate to bring down housing costs by 50%?

Yeah, this is something people forget these days. Regulations are written in blood. We have far fewer people dying in house fires today per 100k people than used to be the case.

Can you please stop this? 7 times in just a few days is excessive:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500744

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36499459

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36488803

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36488260

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36486717

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36480645

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36448458

(We're trying to avoid any kind of repetition on HN, and certainly rhetorical repetition on divisive topics)

Gotcha. I'll point it out when it happens.

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