What will happen to all the McMansions in the 1T?

[beechnut79]

(05-20-2019, 01:58 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-20-2019, 09:17 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-18-2019, 11:07 AM)AspieMillennial Wrote: When a lot of the owners are dying off and they can't be sold for the ridiculous prices? Any idea what will happen based on the last fourth turning? Housing trends seem like a hyper version of a 3T even though we're in the 4T.

Most of them were/are poorly constructed in areas with poor infrastructure.  The exurbs will be swallowed up by rural revival.  I foresee a time where a single mcmansion may remain standing while the picket fences and suburban lawns are ripped up for growing vegetables while the rest either decays or is asset stripped.

In the near suburbs they will be chopped up into multi-family housing much like the old Victorian houses were last time around in the inner cities. 

The key question is will the 1T  attempt to repeat the last or will there be political will for vital infrastructure improvement.

Because the owners are upscale, the builders could get away with poor infrastructure. The McMansions themselves are often of shoddy construction that will make them unsuited for cutting up into apartments -- as will the poor infrastructure. I see them being torn down because they are inefficient land use. Asset stripping? Sure. Some people will cherish the chandeliers and other such 'luxury' appointments. They are unlikely to have any commercial value as office or retail space.

One day last year I paid a visit to what I thought an attractive town -- the town itself is attractive (Dexter, Michigan, just outside Ann Arbor -- but found myself into some McMansion developments. If you know rural Michigan at all it is a haven for Victorian housing, as Michigan had a population boom at that time. Were I developing houses in Michigan I would push 'neo-Victorian' buildings with fully-modern amenities, high-quality construction, and some revivals of nineteenth-century quirks. McMansions? Somebody has no appreciation of the architectural heritage of the region.     

I doubt that the owners will be starting any vegetable gardens in the interim.

A big question will be whether America becomes a pure plutocracy in which really well-built castles and palaces get built or a more equitable society in which exurbs become cities in their own right, like Naperville, Illinois and McKinney, Texas. There will be much redevelopment in real estate, whether in the wake of a destructive war or the predictable demise of most housing stock. The suburban post-WWII housing built for returning GIs and the infrastructure backing them were built to last a lifetime... probably of the children living there. But as the children born to those places in the late 40s and early 50s cross age 70, guess how the streets and sewers are now: messes. That housing is now obsolete, and obsolete, mass-market things get obliterated without regret.

McMansions were wasteful from the start, and if they start to be foreclosed upon, they will be destroyed for the most efficient housing available.



Built 1962, demolished 2005. Would you like to live in such a place? Grain elevators with windows.

I am guessing that this photo is one of a housing project similar to Chicago's infamous Cabrini Green. I have mentioned to people that one day many of the huge houses you are referring to could become the next generation of flop houses in the same way that some of the old mansions in Chicago's inner city did. But it is probably far enough off that most of not all of us on this forum will not be around to see it.  But were any of the predictions mentioned here were to come true, it would have to be accompanied by the acceptance of smaller living spaces, quite the opposite of what the trend has been since the end of WWII.

Between the two wars the big housing trend in and around Chicago was the bungalow, those quaint houses you will see lining many streets particular on Chicago's northwest and southwest sides. Today these areas are home to many city workers who are required by law to live within city limits. Might we possibly see a revival of buildings such as rooming houses, which would be a big benefit in solving much of the problem of homelessness? Not too long ago I read a book titled "Generation Priced Out". It's author, Randy Shaw, lay much of the blame for the problem at the feet of zoning laws and homeowners associations, which have conspired to hogtie developers so that nothing but single family homes and pricey condo projects can be built. It is an issue we so far seem to be very reluctant to address.