sakoro interesting! I think they are really fascinating on a lot of levels and I love hearing different perspectives on communal living situations bc I think I definitely have my beliefs about them..but I find them interesting and want to learn about them. I could see myself doing it..maybe bc we are @childfree? 🤷♀️
In many ways communal living is counter-cultural to our country's ideas about individualism and the nuclear family. I'm not surprised people's kneejerk reaction is "hell no". But given the number of people who can't afford to get on the property ladder and for whom the existing housing stock isn't appropriate (as a single woman, I don't need a 3 bedroom SFH but I would like space for a garden), a desire to age in place amongst friends rather than be alone or isolated, environmental efficiencies from sharing resources like tools, gym equipment, or laundry facilities, it could make sense for more people.
I think many single people are reconsidering their living arrangements after spending lots of alone-time during COVID. My current ST plan is to buy a condo near my parents' house in their neighborhood. For LT, I want to look into purchasing land and building several tiny houses for a select group of friends/ family.
I have some friends who went in on a duplex together in Chicago and it seems like a good in-between communal living and solo living-they share a yard and a lot of expenses and can easily hang out but have their own spaces too. Now they are both married and it still works great!
I have to agree with others though who have said both of us wfh has made smaller spaces a problem. I’m at the dining table with my computer and now we can’t really eat dinner there anymore but we don’t have an eat in kitchen so we just sit around with food in our laps. But our bedroom doesn’t have space for a desk and chair. We need to either move or renovate at some point but we are so lazy.
@@my daughter will be 9 in April and she would love her own bedroom to escape her little brother. A tough part of smaller home living is never being able to be alone, when you are a kid that is. At least I can go drive my car around on my own lol. I mean when I was a kid I never had my own room either but I shared with sisters. While I know in many situations a brother and sister would indefinitely have to share a room I guess I just want to purchase an out from that and we do have the privilege to do so.
We have a very large house (finished basement plus 3 floors - 4600 sq feet) and it has a great layout so that no rooms are wasted. Obviously we could get by on less space but we don’t have any rooms that are never used, particularly now that we are all home. It’s a 1905 house and a historically somewhat significant (we are in a historic neighborhood and it was built by important architects but it’s not a designated historic home). It’s beautiful and we are working hard to maintain it and keep all the original details in place. It’s a lot more work and expense than a smaller or newer home, but we fell head over heels in love with it and every day I’m so happy to be here. I don’t think all large houses can be compared with McMansions that are built with less thought for space other than making rooms as large as possible (2 story great rooms are my personal pet peeve lol). Older homes can be large yet thoughtful, and preserving some of them is important.
@@ As much as we love this house we will be selling once both kids are out of school. It’s not only way too big for empty nesters but also bot old people friendly. Way too many steep stairs and crazy maitenence. I stil get sad thinking of leaving though .
Post by amberlyrose on Jan 20, 2021 16:39:03 GMT -5
I looked up my old homes on Zillow:
1st home, 900sqft- 2bd, 1ba. Three kids under 10. Very large backyard and my grandparents lived across the street. 2nd home, 1500-1800 sqft- 3bd converted to 4bd, 2 ba. Smaller yard, closer to schools. Three pre-teen kids for most of the time.
I don't ever remember feeling cramped in either of those homes and we were always the house that everyone hung out at.
Our house is about 1200sq ft and there is so much open space. Before we have kids, we might build into the attic, but we could deal with two of us WFH. I don't think I'd want anything over 1800.
This thread has really reminded me how much I enjoy the show Home Town on HGTV. It’s the couple that live in Laurel, MS and redo a lot of old houses there. Many of them are small (1500 sq ft or less), and the cost of the property + reno is usually less than $150K. They do a lot of budget finishes like sheet vinyl floor and laminate counters, and often are doing houses to get more people on the property ladder who wouldn’t otherwise be able to own a home.
H and I talk about this in our local area a lot. It seems that every reno or new build has all the expensive finishes like stone counters, tile and hardwood floors, tile showers, etc. So many more people would be able to afford property here if we could just tolerate laminate counters and a fibreglass tub/shower combo.
We actually have a fibreglass tub in one bathroom and a stall shower in the other and people have commented that we'll definitely have to replace those with tile. Why??
Since a lot of people have mentioned this...remember that housing prices are driven in only small part by things like finishes. The op linked article went into this (as well as the parking min issue) in some detail. This is a near and dear subject to me since it touches my work in a lot of ways.
A lot of the push toward bigger single family homes and away from housing suitable for smaller families and smaller budgets comes from 1. Zoning and 2. Scarcity (which is often driven by zoning and the local approval process, but also things like concentrated demand for land around certain features. Metro stops around dc for example)
So sure they're building these houses with granite counters, but that's not what drives a house from 150k to 400k (or 800k or 1.4M). It's the fact that a lot of desirable locations have been zoned such that they can ONLY build single family homes, and those are inefficient to build so they have to be expensive to get your money's worth as a builder. If the zoning dictates that you can fit a max of 20 lots on a given parcel, and youcan fit a 4000sf house on that lot size, no purely for profit entitiy in their right mind is going to build 20 2000sf houses instea since we've shifted culturally to want these massive houses and the market will let people take out crazy ass loans to buy them so the demand is there.
But if the zoning allows for (OR REQUIRES!) a mix of housing types they will gleefully build some townhomes or two over twos or actually nice low rise condo/apartment buildings (low rise had a bad rap for a while now, but they've figured it out again, but it gets pushback so it's riskier) because there is a good profit margin on those as long as the market is there. (High rise is a different beast and has different break points because of the structural stuff and other inefficiencies)
For those who live in a metro area, or a fairly built up suburb...there's probably some housing policy advocate somewhere in your area pushing for changes to the zoning code on this stuff. If you think there should be smaller homes out there, I highly recommend you find those advocates and help. It's a super local thing so every extra body makes a legit difference.
Also you should NOT be the people opposing a townhouse or apartment development in your well situated suburb because of "the schools" or "the traffic". Those are things that can be addressed without continuing to create an artificial scarcity in the market for reasonably sized (and priced!) housing.
/Soapbox
Oh I lied, back on the box for a second....ALSO the structural racism inherent in how banks finance development is still a thing. Cities and things that are city-like (like 900sf living spaces) are a bad risk. Single family homes inhabited by mostly white folks are a good risk. Redlining isn't a thing anymore on paper but....still a thing in their underlying data and the results.
Oh I lied, back on the box for a second....ALSO the structural racism inherent in how banks finance development is still a thing. Cities and things that are city-like (like 900sf living spaces) are a bad risk. Single family homes inhabited by mostly white folks are a good risk. Redlining isn't a thing anymore on paper but....still a thing in their underlying data and the results.
Oh I lied, back on the box for a second....ALSO the structural racism inherent in how banks finance development is still a thing. Cities and things that are city-like (like 900sf living spaces) are a bad risk. Single family homes inhabited by mostly white folks are a good risk. Redlining isn't a thing anymore on paper but....still a thing in their underlying data and the results.
I already recommended it to the library so I am hoping I will get to read it soon.
Oh, I'll ask my library for it too!
eta: but if yours gets it and mine doesn't I'm interlibrary loaning that thing, so lemme know if it comes in (after you've gotten your turn...). I feel like your library HAS to get it. Though mine did host that whole exhibition on redlining, so they should be into it. Or I'm cracking and spending $22 for it on the kindle, but I've been trying to keep my finger off the amazon trigger
I already recommended it to the library so I am hoping I will get to read it soon.
Oh, I'll ask my library for it too!
eta: but if yours gets it and mine doesn't I'm interlibrary loaning that thing, so lemme know if it comes in (after you've gotten your turn...). I feel like your library HAS to get it. Though mine did host that whole exhibition on redlining, so they should be into it. Or I'm cracking and spending $22 for it on the kindle, but I've been trying to keep my finger off the amazon trigger