hokiewolf said:
You fix housing buy building more housing. The biggest issue to me is zoning laws that limit the types of construction you can have. That has had severe consequences with affordability and clear red lines for things like schools and overall neighborhood safety.
Offering incentives to include 20% affordability or for the local government to step in and build affordable housing without changing the single family zoning and other restrictions will never fix the situation.
The quickest way to affordable housing is to build more housing. It's amazing to me how much elected officials try to game that simple principle to appease the masses.
Also, what ever happened to the 2bed 2 bath starter home? That size home has been stagnant in the market since the 60s. Adding those at a higher rate to the housing stock would dramatically improve affordability
Land prices have rendered that product completely unprofitable for developers and builders in urban and suburban markets. Also expectations have changed over the decades and everyone now thinks they need at least 3 BR.
Our land price to sale price ratio needs to be 4x. ~3x max. Meaning if we're building a $600k home we need to have not more than $150k in the lot; $200k developed lot cost would be bleeding edge.
Work that down to a 1500 SF 2 BD, 2 BA product that we can market in the $400k's. No chance of finding that land in or around Raleigh. We're doing a townhome deal now where our townhome product will be in the mid-4's sale price with a developed lot basis in the $125k range.
Our goal on this deal has been to bring workforce housing to market (defined as affordable for Raleigh residents making 80%-120% of median income in our area). We found land at value because it's brownfield and was purchased requiring a rezoning and is on a historically underdeveloped side of Raleigh. And we still need to build a 1700 SF, 3 BR unit to reach our target market.
I can't conceive of how you build single family product at that same price in Raleigh. We're only nominally able to do it because we're achieving fair density since this project is multi-family and our raw land basis was abnormally low given the challenged site.
There's just a huge disconnect right now between what it costs to buy land and build, and what folks can afford or expect.