eli5: Would making house’s cheaper fix the housing issue?
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Well, sure… making houses cheaper would help fix the issue, but the question is how do you make houses cheaper? Materials cost what they cost, labor costs what it cost. Land, especially in desirable places gets more and more expensive. So we’d need to find ways to reduce land cost. The easiest solution is to increase density. Smaller yards, townhouses, condos, etc. Would also create benefits of generating more density to support local businesses, help create sufficient demand for forms of public transit, etc. but we need to convince home buyers they don’t need 3000 sq. ft. on half an acre of land. We also need to get cities to embrace the future of transportation and reduce the parking requirements in zoning laws. With the rise of ride share, bike/scooter share programs, future self-driving cars, etc. we don’t need a garage/parking space for every single unit built. That space could go to more units, that cost reduced from each unit’s purchase/rent price.
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