All Annotations of Hitting close to home on affordability - Crosscut Seattle -[Preview]

saved byYule Heibel on 2008-02-20

• Part of the demand side of the equation is, of course, growth: more people. But what is it that those people want? They want bigger houses, bigger condos, and bigger apartments. It's tough to meet density goals when the number of people per home is shrinking and the size of the homes is increasing. It means more and more people are eating up more space — and space costs more. This is a national phenomenon.

• Builders respond to market demand. What is it people want?

  In 1970, the average new single-family home was 1,500 square feet; in 2005, the figure swelled to 2,434 square feet — an increase of over 900 square feet.

  In 1970, 36 percent of new homes were under 1,200 square feet; by 2005, only 4 percent were. In 1970, only 10 percent of homes were over 2,400 sq. feet; in 2005, 42 percent were.

• American homes are bigger, taller, and with more amenities than the houses of old. The result: a large increase in the number of new two-story-plus homes (17 percent in 1970 vs. 55 percent in 2005), the number of bedrooms (four bedroom homes grew from 24 percent in 1970 to 39 percent in 2005), the number with 2-1/2 baths on the market has doubled, and the number of homes with two-car garages has increased from 39 percent to 64 percent — with an additional 20 percent of new homes sporting three-car garages. Size has mattered, too, in new multi-family housing, where the number of units over 1,200 square feet has doubled since 1990, from 20 percent to 43 percent.

  America could be scaling expectations to bring about a lower-cost reality. We have not. But don't blame it all on the sprawling suburbs. You can see this upsizing in Seattle neighborhoods where bungalows are being remodeled and renovated by new buyers. Often, you'll see buyers take a small, 1,000-square-foot home, expand it, add granite countertops and a professional chef kitchen, add a deck, a bunch of bathrooms and walk-in closets, and flip it for high-end resale. A perfectly habitable small home that cost cost $500,000 has now been upgraded with completely optional lifestyle amenities, and the price more than doubled.

• Another issue is the economic profile of the people who live here now. Part of the run-up in home prices has to be well-paying job generators like Microsoft and other tech enterprises that have produced so much instant wealth.