Calling on lawmakers to do away with the "outdated laws and regulations that made it harder to build homes for working people," former U.S. President Barack Obama thrilled audience members with an impassioned plea for mass-scale housing production at the 2024 Democratic National Convention last night in Chicago. One comment ("Right now, we are building housing this big. But we need to start building housing this big") has earned him a new viral reputation as a "YIMBY."
The rallying cry echoes remarks made two years ago at the 2022 AIA Conference on Architecture, namely about the intersection between housing justice, social inequality, and government policy that architects inhabit being intractable. Both the embattled single-family and expanding multi-family markets shrank by 6% and 14.4%, respectively, last year, according to Census Bureau data.
Presidential candidate Kamala Harris' plan to build three million new homes in four years faces a considerable amount of obstacles related to not just building regulations but also economic conditions and the supply chain. At its height in the years following World War II, the domestic homebuilding industry was able to produce more than 1.7 million new homes annually, or about 300,000 more than were constructed last year, as the housing shortage grew to 4.5 million.
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Democrats are great at making empty promises. Biden spent $7.5 billion and got 7 charging stations.
Big fat GOP lie # 1: trickle-down, “supply-sided” economics. Where is the supply? In stock buy backs, offshore accounts, McMansions and “luxury” condos. And here is the fun one: demolishing affordable housing to build unaffordable “luxury” apartment units because apparently, the GOP doesn’t want rent to the working class whose wages they have been stagnant for the last 44 years. Where did all that money go? It went to build a 1% billionaire class that didn’t exist 44 years ago. Yet idiot temporarily embarrassed billionaires keep voting for the GOP in the one and 300 million chance they might become one of them.
Obama has been trying to push favelas into suburban America for 16 years now, and there is no real case for doing so. This is a solution in search of a problem.
You don’t know anything about the suburbs. They’re awful. Americans deserve better.
I like my suburb fine. It was a fruit farm operated by the local college decades ago. There are some beautiful homes here with landscaping and small parks that reflects its earlier use. A lot of us homeowners started with nothing and now have a very nice home we can enjoy now and pass on to our kids later.
I live in the suburbs, after having spent an earlier part of my life being an urban homesteader near downtown Seattle (on the border of CHAZ) before being chased out by crime and vagrants. I also work exclusively on suburban projects now, after having spent many years doing towers and other urban stuff. In both cases, it's much better and I am much happier.
gwharton - so you run a design build firm that only dose work in the suburbs? What types of projects are you involved in? Is it just single and multi family housing?
We build luxury single family homes. It's all infill: new homes built in established neighborhoods. I switched over to doing this from towers and mixed-use about three years ago, and love it.
gwharton - You're a design build firm as well, correct?
Design, development, construction. Fully vertically integrated.
A design build firm then.
That is part of what we do, yes.
You design and build custom, high end homes. I'd think the planning of a development would be part of the design portion.
What other services do you offer?
We don't offer any "services" in the sense you seem to be meaning (like conventional design-build). We have a business operation which does a lot of different things to create and offer products, and then some services associated witht those products after they're purchased. Apart from designing and building houses, we do real estate capital management and acquisition, brokerage, software development, and concierge services among other things.
Sounds like a bit of balanced vertical integration. How many homes do you design and build a year?
This year, we're on track for 86 completions. Next year it will be 110-115. We've been on a ~30% yoy growth curve for awhile now and don't see that slowing any time soon.
Is the design build portion of your firm is the majority of your business?
I'm still not totally clear on how you are using "design build" in these questions. You seem to suggest it as a some kind of conventional service model. It's not. We sell new, luxury homes which we build in existing, established neighborhoods (i.e. every one of our homes is a unique product on a single site). There are lots of things which need to happen for us to be able to provide those homes to the market as a product, and we do all of them in-house with very few exceptions. Designing them and building them are just a couple.
I am not suggesting any type of conventional service model.
As part of your business, you design and build luxury homes. How much of your total revenue comes from the designing and building of these luxury homes.
Exclude:
They're all part of the same thing, so the answer is either: all or none. It's 100% but impossible to segregate like you suggest, or if you are trying to say "how much revenue comes from design, and how much from construction" the answer is technically zero. That's all overhead. All our revenue comes from sales. That's why I find your terminology confusing.
It's not confusing.
I simply wanted to know if you offered any of the 'other' services if a client wasn't doing a design and build with you. It sounds like the answer is no.
I assumed that with all the services you offered, combined with your vertical integration you would know what the revenue, or in this case the overhead it costs your firm to do the design and construction of a home. I also assumed that you would know the revenue / overhead cost for each of the services you offer. I guess not. It seems like you provide your clients with all services you offer regardless. Hence your flat, fixed fee. I'm wondering how that scales with the complexity of a project.
To be fair - in architecture all of your revenue comes from sales. That is unless you mean sales to be other than convincing someone to hire your to do _______.
We don't have clients. We are our own client, exclusively. We have customers. That's where you are missing the basic point here. Our business model is fundamentally different than the fee-for-service framework you are used to. It's like if you were asking BMW if they make most of their money doing "design-build". The question doesn't make sense the way you are posing it.
I understand that. Unless you are building spec homes though you have clients that have input on the design. Are you building spec homes?
Yes. 100% spec. We have no clients.
That's what I thought. You demo / remodel, or infill urban locations with single family homes then sell them to people. You require buyers to use your firm for the mortgage. That why in previous threads you said you provide design services at a 'fixed fee'. It's a nice business strategy.
It is a good business model, and vastly more profitable than being a consultant, but the "design services" are not fixed-fee in this case. The fixed-fee pricing I referred to in the other thread was from when I was a managing principal running a regional practice for one of the big 10 global architecture firms. In the case of what I'm doing now, there are no "fees" at all. Architecture is just part of the cost of production, so 100% overhead.
You keep saying that however, without the architecture and the building would have have anything to sell? If you stopped designing spec homes how much revenue would you lose?
All of it. But we could switch over a lot of what we do to generating revenue in other ways. We could license our proprietary software tools to others and become a software company (this has been discussed). We could create a REIT to operate through our real estate investment operation serving outside investors. We could do general contracting for outside construction clients. We could do design-build for outside clients (this has also been discussed as a "full custom" expansion of our current business). We could even let outside clients hire our architecture/interiors team to design projects for them (we will likely never do that for the same reason we don't do it with software, because those two things are the source of all our product IP). We currently don't do any of that because we have a better revenue model by feeding all of those operations into the creation of products (homes) we can sell directly. The vertical integration of those operations allows us to do it vastly more efficiently and economically than having them contracted separately. That makes the overall business consequently much more profitable because our costs and delivery times are much lower than unintegrated competitors, and we can be much more nimble in the marketplace because we do not have transactional friction between the various operational components of the process.
Makes sense.
You'll always make more money when you're the designer, building, relator, and bank. You're probably making a 35% profit on each house you sell. That's without the other services you offer.
That still doesn't change that without the house you have no current revenue. Yes you could pivot to other revenue streams via other services. Your design build aspect of your business isn't overhead - it's one of the services you provide.
wow you guys are weird
Agreed. Sounds like some culture war nonsense.
Kamala's plan to build three million homes in four years is in addition to the 1.5 million homes being built annually. That is a 50% annual increase in completed homes each year. It would totally crash the supply chain and lead to extremely higher inflation rates for building materials, skilled labor, and land.
Real-world economics has clearly never been Kamala's strong suit. But then, we can see that everywhere in the economy right now, can't we.
Reduce home sizes to 1/3 to 1/2 of current houses that are oversized, which would be about the size of the average 1950s homes unlike today's McMansions with room for two cars. Volunteer, your math is off. When you do the math, same or similar volume of material but uses less per home. We can do that and still have supply or not increase supply. Another thing, INCREASE supply if we need to. However, we can also mitigate increase supply demand by using less per home. There are ways to do it. Then you also get more workers WORKING and employing people, training them to build. This means less unemployed to work on twice the number of projects. We have enough contractors that are licensed and people. That's not the issue. We actually have too many for current needs. Volunteer, it's not 50% annual increase, it would be a 100% increase. 50% increase for 10 is 15. 50% increase on 1.5 is 2.25. 100% of 1.5 is 1.5. Right? 100% of 1.5 in addition to 1.5 would be 1.5 + 1.5. Right? That equals 3 which would be 200% of the original. 100% + 100% = 200%. Right? When we talk about increase in percentage in how your sentence form says, we are talking the percentage of the increase is to the original amount. If it was increased by 1.2, it would be an 80% increase to the original amount. 1.2 is 80% of 1.5. 1.5 + 80% = 1.5 + 1.2 = 2.7. Are you following? If the majority of architects makes this kind of mathematical mistakes, there's a problem in architectural education. It is probably why we are very sloppy with math. I understand in construction, we will need to pad the numbers for construction waste which is naturally expected that isn't absolutely precise.
Americans love to go vacation in Europe and marvel at how walkable and interesting the cities are then come back, get in the F-250 baby-smasher and drive 15 minutes from their sad suburban house to the grocery store. The dissonance is astonishing.
We have neither the population demographics, land constraints, nor the legal freedom to build cities in a traditional European mode, so it's kind of a silly comparison to make.
We also don't have the infrastructure nor the density. FYI - legal freedom has nothing do with it.
It all comes down to demand.
Demographics is a red herring -
Median Age Spain: 46 years.
Median Age California 38 years.
Population Density Spain: 94 people/ sq km
Population Density California: 97 people/ sq km.
What are the land constraints? Nothing but zoning/ tied in to legal freedom which again, is a choice.
Chad - Infrastructure and Density are the results of the choice for densification, not the precursors, or rather they happen in concert.
Again, it comes down to demand. People are happy to go on vacation to experience it but then come home and hide behind their culture wars and flawed arguments to defend what are, at their core, conscious decisions to live in an unsustainable manner.
These arguments sound a lot like the meme: "If we grind everyone into a fine powder, we can house 18 billion people in an area smaller than Manhattan!"
If you really think that grinding people into a fine powder = giving them walkable communities with shops, restaurants, and social lives then you are probably unreachably brain damaged by right wing propaganda.
What a crazy time we live in.
Don't design and build 5000 to 10,000 sq.ft. houses. Build them around 2000-3500 sq.ft.
Could be history has something to do with it? Construction in Europe is slightly older than American stock? We have no layered marble chip streets to preserve but we might have a few highly skilled Portuguese immigrants to build you some if you like. If you’d like to start a new project on a medieval town plan up in the cliffs, why, I have no objections. Most of American housing is designed by the bottom line which means asphalt roof tops, plastic siding and pretend wood flooring. For that you pay double for a house than it was two years ago! Price controls anyone? Nobody’s salary has doubled and the beauty of these corporate developments has not double. In my neighborhood they are tearing down perfectly viable affordable homes to build cookie cutter McMansions starting at 4 million. Within a span of about 10 years they will have wiped out all of the historic context and fabric of this neighborhood. What will remain will be towering office buildings with homeless settlements in their doorways at war with the 4 million dollar McMansions owners. Welcome to the third world.
When Democrats say "we want to build three million homes" it is meant to create a picture in everyone's minds of a suburban home with a nice yard, trees, etc. What is meant is the cadre of real estate feudalist YIMBYs that now fund the Democratic Party and build crowded, four story, depressing rentals that are occupied by criminals and drug addicted cat ladies.
We already know what works -- traditional 1920-40s urban fabric surrounded by single family home suburbs with 1950s proportions, with a healthy economy and farming ecosystem nearby. Unfortunately now you get much of wealth consolidated by corrupt DC, NY tax theft economies that drives housing costs up where there is no more place to build.
I'd like to see better design concepts here. Revitalize cities in the Rust Belt and across the country that already have strong urban fabrics. Change zoning to be based on design values, not real estate inputs. Things government should be doing, not building homes. And get rid of all property taxes.
Oh hush. You know less about politics than you do about urban planning.
"Traditional 1920-40s urban fabric" requires a robust public transit system. During those years Indianapolis had one of if not the most extensive streetcar systems in the country, all destroyed when the car companies took over the American dream. I'd be THRILLED to go back to that kind of density along with the transit that makes it work!
It looks like Indianapolis has an extensive public bus system. Does that not work?
It depends Eamez.
If you can't answer yest to all of the above then no, it doesn't work.
Eamez, it does not. Typical headways are 30-60 minutes. The BRT lines are better, but not reliable enough that you don’t need to allow 30-45 minutes just in case. My experience riding transit in Philly was much better, but it’s a much more dense city.
This Times piece is a good review of the state of housing now:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/22/business/economy/housing-crisis-kalamazoo-michigan.html
If you want to know what the housing crisis for middle-income Americans looks like in 2024, spend some time in Michigan. The surplus-to-shortage whipsaw here is a mitten-shaped miniature of what the entire country has gone through.
Now California’s problem is everywhere. Double-income couples with good jobs are priced out of homeownership in Spokane, Wash. Homeless encampments sprawl in Phoenix. The rent is too damn high in Kalamazoo.
The idea of a truly free housing market, where private developers work to satisfy the demands of families that acquire homes through their own grit, has always been a fiction.
Another myth is the idea that the market has the will, means, and motive to correct the problem.
The state and federal bureaucracies will always distort the free market with cronyism, special interest benefits and graft, and then blame the free market for not delivering. Then they will get corrupt real estate connected media outlets like the New York Times to run cover for them.
Notice how The NY Times Arch critic now gets money from leftist nonprofits while the real estate ad industry has effectively shut down design criticism. Now they only report about the biggest, most expensive social housing boondoggles as if they are gifts from god.
Is it such a bad thing to set a goal to build three million housing units in single and multi-family types when is much needed?
I support it and it is 100% doable. I only wished they hired good firms to design livable communities with built-in happiness and environmentally considered architecture.
This is the problem. The government will funnel tens of billion of dollars to the most DC connected contractors and bureaucrats in order to build more poor-quality housing in overcrowded blue cities so that money can flow to their connected interests.
Eamez - My gosh you're partisan and foolish.
He's not wrong, though he's focusing on only one side of it. Just look at what happened with the Rural Broadband Initiative. $45 billion down the drain with essentially nothing to show for it except lining the pockets of the politically connected. And also just about everything HUD touches.
If he's saying that it's only a 'blue' problem then he is wrong.
Suburban Poor
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And yet, More?
These are all good links.
This sounds like a challenge to anyone who is listening.
It is giving an opportunity for Architects, Urban Designers, Planners, Landscape Architects and citizens alike in re-imagining our suburban landscape, cities and neighborhoods to become more sustainable with different housing types, businesses, mobility, urban typologies, public art, and open spaces.
I don’t think we can sprawl with a single family homes and estates with 2-8 car garages on the amount of damage towards our natural landscape and environment. We are at the tipping point.
In the mid 20th century, American cities were designed around the car. It’s a new ball game right now when cities are adding public transportation, bike lanes, transit oriented communities, murals, charging stations, Wi-Fi coverage and multitude of things all over. There is going to be a new type of infrastructure and urban landscape for the near future if we don’t blow ourselves up!
With communities searching for an identity, equity and justice, along with saving the planet, the challenge is there for the taking. More about community engagement than marketing, branding, ideology and attacks.
I agree, but don't see the structures that will lobby for a design revolution, when the AIA is only interested in helping the architecture profession collect fees and protect itself, while media outlets no longer cover design seriously, as they too are implicated by real estate and DC bureaucratic interests.
Academia would ideally be the place for such a program, but I don't see any realistic and integrated programming apart from typical naive anti-car, hyper leftists claptrap. What's needed is radical transparency, integration and accountability first, then a real design institution in DC.
Grass-roots approach is probably the only head-waves to make a significant impact to all of us. I don’t see the architectural academic programs really engaging the general public or analyzing the current or draft policies that will affect the built environment in neighborhoods dominated by urban sprawl or blight.
There has to be a movement where everyone is involved, not a select few.
A lot of this is about zoning and keeping places exclusive - without any way for the city to change when it needs changing. Europe was able to convert its early suburbs to modern urban fabric, and it has a little bit of that ability still. But I can say from my own experience working in Europe (recently) that it is not easy to build there either. For similar technical/policy reasons. The motivations are different between Europe and North America but the NIMBY outcome is very much the same.
In Japan our experience is frankly a model of radical libertarianism, where zoning is matter-of-fact and there is no social segregation. And also no housing shortage. All that happened by plan when Japan set up policies to solve their version of a global housing crisis in the 1970s. It was a lot like today, funny enough. Japan answered that crisis by making it possible to build lots of multi-unit housing anywhere in the country and have had a housing surplus every year since 1972. Cool because its true.
Even better they have only sensible restrictions on land use, meaning even the car-based suburbs in the most rural parts of the country can be pretty walkable.
North America is slowly following a similar pattern, with emphasis on the slow. In Toronto, where I am teaching recently, a lot of changes to the zoning system in the past 5 years are going to make Toronto very different from now on. Except I dont think North Americans really want to get rid of the exclusivity of their suburban planning regulations. So it wont be as radical as all that.
The upshot is that north america is putting processes in place that will allow cities to change again, much as they used to, and long overdue. What cities look like, and how much they adhere to one ism or the next, will not really change the outcome very much in my opinion. The ability to change form will have a massive impact though. And that is probably how a declaration like Obama's will actually happen. Not with one answer, but hundreds if not thousands.
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