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Old 09-18-2020, 02:53 PM   #101
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my home was built in 1930.
.
Most people would rather buy a 'move in ready' new house than put resources into renovating an older house, if nothing else because of the logistics difficulty of living in a place while renovations are ongoing. Our housing market is not set up for that.

It's the same for older cars, not including the 'status symbol' aspect it often would make sense to put money into an older car for a new engine/trans/brakes/paint, etc. But the logistics of getting around in the meantime just don't exist.

Also, interest income is the profit generator, and the mechanisms (building codes, property valuation, zoning, lending, etc) to push new construction which maximize those profits for all involved are firmly in place.
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Old 09-18-2020, 02:58 PM   #102
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Thank you for the clarification. I agree with your last sentence. I would say it is not surprising though because what choice(s) do you have? There are limited amounts of builders in an area competing against each other. Plus you can get out of a car really easily if you don't want it, much harder to get out of a house.
All true.

I think consumer pressure may help nudge builders along. Though I'd also personally love to see a move towards more diverse and smaller builders and good design (ie use of Architects) being democratized a little. If for no other reasons than that large subdivisions full of 4 different house types are soul suckingly depressing.

I'd love to see the consumers start holding the builders accountable more, and do the research just as much in how they build not just how big and what appliances you get.

When I was still looking at houses here in NTX and DFW in particular, when looking around, it was pretty clear which builders were worth going with and which weren't, if you looked at new construction, and in a couple of cases, that actually meant looking at town home construction over SFH in the same development.

The high $400k's SFH were built to a significantly lower standard than the mid $300k's townhomes. I even had a project manager at a development look at me like I'd grown two heads when I asked what sheathing materials they used, and he didn't know.
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Old 09-18-2020, 03:00 PM   #103
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So we’re doing cars now?

Our housing market is either the bus, an entry level BMW or a Rolls.


Where are the Hondas?
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Old 09-18-2020, 03:03 PM   #104
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Things are greater than the sum of their parts. Plenty of cars use minimal quality pieces when they think it won't matter to the overall whole. Like using knotty wood behind drywall. Dodge dash boards get hot and warp (oops). They knew how to make them better, thought they didn't have to.
Those Prius fuel economy numbers are meant to offset the corporate average. Each model is designed to achieve something, at the expense of other things. Make it light and minimalist and it doesn't get that Volvo crash rating as you mentioned, but sure exceeds CAFE while being acceptable in a crash.
Right, but if you buy a Genesis G80, you expect (and they advertise and show off) how it's structurally superior to a Hyundai Accent.

Yet you can buy production builder houses for over a million around here that have cardboard walls.

Some of it is definitely changing, there are some builders who try to do things better and show consumers why, but I wish we'd see consumers put a bit more pressure on builders to do a little better than the bare minimum.
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Old 09-18-2020, 03:05 PM   #105
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So we’re doing cars now?

Our housing market is either the bus, an entry level BMW or a Rolls.


Where are the Hondas?
You slayed them all.
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Old 09-18-2020, 03:16 PM   #106
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You slayed them all.
Yeah, made a cool million.


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Old 09-18-2020, 04:15 PM   #107
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I'd just like to say that this is not a thread I expected to see bumped. Carry on.
Over two pages of replies since bumping... Much success?
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Old 09-18-2020, 05:20 PM   #108
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Right, but if you buy a Genesis G80, you expect (and they advertise and show off) how it's structurally superior to a Hyundai Accent.
No. The design tools and quality standards within a company are consistent, only the targets change. In cars the basic function, transportation in absence of mechanical failure, is expected to be true across the board. A car with luxury features is not expected to be more mechanically sound than a basic car for transportation.

In single family homes I do not think this is true. It seems to be expected that there will be numerous call backs for various issues that relate to the basic function of the house, plumbing, hvac, electrical, etc. But this is to be expected given the method of construction, where every piece is more or less made from scratch and/or hand fitted on site.

As cookie cutter as new homes are it's amazing that plant-built, pre-fabbed houses, down to the wiring/plumbing/hvac runs with only onsite connection required, aren't more of a thing.
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Old 09-18-2020, 05:29 PM   #109
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A car with luxury features is not expected to be more mechanically sound than a basic car for transportation.
I guess you have very different expectations of cars than I see from people I know and myself.

Ex: I expect my Genesis to fare better in an accident than my Ford Focus, I also expect it to age better (which it has).

That said, your problem seems to be with the analogy, feel free to pick another. It's still incomprehensible to me that people accept as low of a standard of construction as they do, even in more expensive homes when far superior products and methods are available for reasonably small increases in material costs.
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Old 09-18-2020, 06:13 PM   #110
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I guess you have very different expectations of cars than I see from people I know and myself.

Ex: I expect my Genesis to fare better in an accident than my Ford Focus, I also expect it to age better (which it has).

That said, your problem seems to be with the analogy, feel free to pick another. It's still incomprehensible to me that people accept as low of a standard of construction as they do, even in more expensive homes when far superior products and methods are available for reasonably small increases in material costs.
Yeah, I was going to get into that, but I’m tired of pointing out blatantly obvious things.


A person buying a new Mercedes S class doesn’t expect better quality than a person buying a base model Rio?

No, just no
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Old 09-18-2020, 07:37 PM   #111
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Yeah, I was going to get into that, but I’m tired of pointing out blatantly obvious things.


A person buying a new Mercedes S class doesn’t expect better quality than a person buying a base model Rio?

No, just no
Ok, well the consumer may expect different, but that's marketing, it has no bearing on reality. Quality disciplines are fixed per OEM, at least the ones I have worked for. Luxury brand X built in plant A does not get different quality discipline from Basic brand Y built in the same plant. Engine built in plant B that goes to US plant for premium vehicle and European plant for base vehicle does not have different quality or design standards applied.

That a consumer believes differently does not change that, it only enables different profit margins.

The difference with single family homes is that the quality discipline and industry standards for finished product are drastically lower and/or unmeasured entirely, and the cost and commitment by the consumer are drastically higher.
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Old 09-18-2020, 08:10 PM   #112
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Ok, well the consumer may expect different, but that's marketing, it has no bearing on reality. Quality disciplines are fixed per OEM, at least the ones I have worked for. Luxury brand X built in plant A does not get different quality discipline from Basic brand Y built in the same plant. Engine built in plant B that goes to US plant for premium vehicle and European plant for base vehicle does not have different quality or design standards applied.

That a consumer believes differently does not change that, it only enables different profit margins.

The difference with single family homes is that the quality discipline and industry standards for finished product are drastically lower and/or unmeasured entirely, and the cost and commitment by the consumer are drastically higher.
This is why I bought a vehicle made at the Tahara Plant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota...n_Tahara_plant
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Old 09-18-2020, 09:26 PM   #113
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Ok, well the consumer may expect different, but that's marketing, it has no bearing on reality. Quality disciplines are fixed per OEM, at least the ones I have worked for. Luxury brand X built in plant A does not get different quality discipline from Basic brand Y built in the same plant. Engine built in plant B that goes to US plant for premium vehicle and European plant for base vehicle does not have different quality or design standards applied.

That a consumer believes differently does not change that, it only enables different profit margins.

The difference with single family homes is that the quality discipline and industry standards for finished product are drastically lower and/or unmeasured entirely, and the cost and commitment by the consumer are drastically higher.

You miss that luxury brands tend to pick better suppliers.

Yeah, a Bosch costs 4x as much as a Xingpao, BUT IT’S A ****ING BOSCH
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Old 09-19-2020, 08:59 PM   #114
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Most people would rather buy a 'move in ready' new house than put resources into renovating an older house, if nothing else because of the logistics difficulty of living in a place while renovations are ongoing.
This is really the only thing that's holding me back at the moment.

I'm considering (cause no zoning and no HOA) building a garage apartment. Then the wife and I can live in that while we update the home, then rental income.
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Old 09-20-2020, 08:39 AM   #115
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This is really the only thing that's holding me back at the moment.

I'm considering (cause no zoning and no HOA) building a garage apartment. Then the wife and I can live in that while we update the home, then rental income.
Sounds like a sound plan to me.
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Old 09-20-2020, 10:16 AM   #116
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Houses built before October 1929 were often of better quality than houses built just after. You often find houses built in the 1930's are made from 'recycled' scrap lumber for all the unseen parts. The apartment building I live in was started in 1929 and one wing has fancy four inch milled baseboards in the corridors and the other wing has two inch plain baseboards. You can tell what they had got done before the crash and what was finished after.

Today quality is a factor of regulation and reputation. Generally builders and architects build to the minimum government standard, because they are in competition with other builders and if they have to charge $1,000 more for their product than their competition they will sell fewer units and might go out of business. So the quality of houses is directly linked to the building regulations in your jurisdiction. The only exception is a builder who wants to stand-out and markets their reputation as quality builder. They might build something nicer and charge bit more. But note builders only make money when they first sell the unit and not when it is re-sold, so they generally don't care so much about longevity.
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Old 09-20-2020, 02:36 PM   #117
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IMHO the biggest difference is the wood itself. My parents' house was built in the 1940's and even then the wood was dense. It is hard to nail and screw into, no joke. The stuff you buy now is like butter by comparison.
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Old 09-20-2020, 03:07 PM   #118
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IMHO the biggest difference is the wood itself. My parents' house was built in the 1940's and even then the wood was dense. It is hard to nail and screw into, no joke. The stuff you buy now is like butter by comparison.
Which makes sense. Those older hard growth trees take a long time to grow. The sustainability is in being able to harvest, replant and then harvest within a certain period of time. No one was thinking about that in the early 1900's.
"Look pa, there is a tree we can cut down. saw saw saw".
Softwoods grow significantly faster and allow that process to be as sustainable as possible. As already noted manufacturers are also getting incredibly efficient at using every piece.
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Old 09-20-2020, 03:09 PM   #119
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True. And hence the use of bigger dimensional lumber than in the old days.
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Old 09-20-2020, 03:10 PM   #120
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Edit. WTF - I'm old. I thought I was in another thread.
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Old 09-21-2020, 08:30 AM   #121
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True. And hence the use of bigger dimensional lumber than in the old days.
I thought the opposite was true.

I was looking at a graphic on how the 2x4 has shrunken over the decades
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Old 09-21-2020, 09:13 AM   #122
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Nobody frames with 2x4 anymore that I see. 2x6 minimum for studs.
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Old 09-21-2020, 09:20 AM   #123
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Today quality is a factor of regulation and reputation. Generally builders and architects build to the minimum government standard, because they are in competition with other builders and if they have to charge $1,000 more for their product than their competition they will sell fewer units and might go out of business. So the quality of houses is directly linked to the building regulations in your jurisdiction. The only exception is a builder who wants to stand-out and markets their reputation as quality builder. They might build something nicer and charge bit more. But note builders only make money when they first sell the unit and not when it is re-sold, so they generally don't care so much about longevity.
Building Code is pretty standard throughout the US. The International Residential Code (IRC) is issued every 3 years and all states follow this. There are a few jurisdictions that don't fully follow it, mostly in high wind and high seismic zones. The building part of the code is about 2" thick. 50 years ago, it was about 1/4" and varied greatly from state to state.

The code originated mainly from insurance companies that didn't want their buildings to burn down and for people to die.

Land is expensive. Materials are pretty fixed price. The cost that can be reduced is design complexity or labor. Design complexity is tricky because it's hard to sell an ugly boring house. So, labor suffers. They get the cheapest crew.

Rambling, but... the code is fine. Code minimum is fine, it keeps things affordable. Builders don't care as much about longevity, but this is where building codes come in. You can't build cardboard houses.
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Old 09-21-2020, 09:21 AM   #124
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Nobody frames with 2x4 anymore that I see. 2x6 minimum for studs.
A code energy issue. R19 in the walls needs 2x6. It's great.
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Old 09-21-2020, 09:38 AM   #125
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A code energy issue. R19 in the walls needs 2x6. It's great.
I'm not in the building industry but it seems like so much of R value is in the details of the construction, like paying close attention to all the joints, effect of fasteners, things like that. Does the R value accomodate (typically) imperfect construction?

A friend just built her 'forever' house, an architect by training but a LEED (commercial building) consultant by profession. It's ICF (concrete) perimeter walls, intended to be as close to passive as possible. But it's still wood/lam for joists and rafters, and the cost of commercial window/door systems was out of range so she used residential windows/doors, albeit crazy triple pane European units, so wood framing for the openings.

I was surprised there was no special system for the sealing/insulation in those relatively huge window/door framing gaps. They just got filled up with foam and sealant. Didn't seem very controllable, and still noticeable cold seeping through those joints. The commercial systems seem like they have so many more layers and insulating closures built into their extrusions, but I don't see anything like that for residential construction.
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