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Comment by berbec | Hacker News Reader

The most expensive house in this list is the same as my monthly rent on a 750ft² apartment.

If we had 1915 housing-to-population ratios, that apartment would probably be pretty cheap. Unfortunately, since the 70s and 80s most US cities have made it more and more difficult and expensive to actually build housing in the first place.

I don’t think that was true on a square footage basis: you probably paid much more of your income for less housing than we do today. Also, housing is not a permanent thing: buffalo has a lot less people than it once did but also less housing units, they just don’t stay around for a hundred years without upkeep, if the capital isn’t there to keep them up they disappear.

Do remember though that this does not include land, heavy building materials like bricks, or labor. It is cheaper than a house is now, but not by as much as it may originally seem.

I'm guessing you would expect a longer life out of the offerings from 1920 than today as well. We've gotten really good at making things last just long enough to clear warranty before falling apart to save money, back in 1920 they were mostly using real lumber.

We still use real lumber today. And modern building materials technology is far ahead of whatever was available in the 1920s. Give me the lowest price house built to code in 2024 over the lowest price 1920s house anyday. Especially in neighborhoods with underground utilities (far less chance of power outages in storms).

Plumbing, electrical, insulation, foundation, HVAC, communications, will all perform far better.

In some things, yet, but you wouldn’t want the plumbing, wiring, roof, and foundation from 1920.

In 1920, you could get toilets that flush like a waterfall and showerheads with actually decent flow rates.

In 2024 you can buy showerheads with actually decent flow rates. Just need to adjust them properly or buy decent ones.

And I'll take a good modern toilet over any one I've used from that period. Constantly getting clogged. Sure, it used a lot of water, but they didn't flow well.

Eh a lot of toilets from the period also don’t flush very well, and you have to take care not to clog them.

Yes and no.

These catalog homes are not really adaptable for local climates; for example, many of the Sears Craftsman homes in Seattle have issues with mold due to the constant rain.

This. When we went house shopping in Seattle, we saw alot of craftsman houses with basements and most of them were depressing and expensive, especially the basement, like 1500 sqf on paper but half of that is almost unusable. The newer townhomes were about the same price with no basements but three stories above ground instead, so we wound up in one in Ballard.

I don’t mourn the old houses being torn down to make way for three town homes on the same plot.

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