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

[AspieMillennial]

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.

[Eric the Green]

Housing costs are way too high, obscenely high in some expensive blue areas. I don't see that when younger people inherit them that they will sell them at lower prices just because they are younger. They won't be so young then anyway.

I think the cost of housing is part of our 4T. It is part of the economic crisis, which hurts young people the most. The crisis stems from the mostly-3T neo-liberal free-market ideology, in power since 1980. Now we have a governor in CA who is trying to do something about it. And some other Democratic Party politicians. I don't know how far the prices can be lowered for how many more people. Some people have to move out because of the high prices. That may also reduce the prices, but I don't know by how much or how soon.

The last 4T also saw ongoing economic pressures on the majority of the people, until the war got going. The specifics were different, but the effect was similar. And the cause was the same: libertarian free-market economics policies of the Republican Party.

[AspieMillennial]

(05-18-2019, 11:57 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Housing costs are way too high, obscenely high in some expensive blue areas. I don't see that when younger people inherit them that they will sell them at lower prices just because they are younger. They won't be so young then anyway.

I think the cost of housing is part of our 4T. It is part of the economic crisis, which hurts young people the most. The crisis stems from the mostly-3T neo-liberal free-market ideology, in power since 1980. Now we have a governor in CA who is trying to do something about it. And some other Democratic Party politicians. I don't know how far the prices can be lowered for how many more people. Some people have to move out because of the high prices. That may also reduce the prices, but I don't know by how much or how soon.

The last 4T also saw ongoing economic pressures on the majority of the people, until the war got going. The specifics were different, but the effect was similar. And the cause was the same: libertarian free-market economics policies of the Republican Party.

True but in the last 4T the property prices fell. The ongoing housing bubble didn't keep continuing. What were the 1920s and 1930s versions of McMansions?

[pbrower2a]

(05-18-2019, 03:06 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(05-18-2019, 11:57 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Housing costs are way too high, obscenely high in some expensive blue areas. I don't see that when younger people inherit them that they will sell them at lower prices just because they are younger. They won't be so young then anyway.

I think the cost of housing is part of our 4T. It is part of the economic crisis, which hurts young people the most. The crisis stems from the mostly-3T neo-liberal free-market ideology, in power since 1980. Now we have a governor in CA who is trying to do something about it. And some other Democratic Party politicians. I don't know how far the prices can be lowered for how many more people. Some people have to move out because of the high prices. That may also reduce the prices, but I don't know by how much or how soon.

The last 4T also saw ongoing economic pressures on the majority of the people, until the war got going. The specifics were different, but the effect was similar. And the cause was the same: libertarian free-market economics policies of the Republican Party.

True but in the last 4T the property prices fell. The ongoing housing bubble didn't keep continuing. What were the 1920s and 1930s versions of McMansions?

Many will be torn down (they are inefficient and too shoddily constructed to be divided into apartments) for housing more typical of Japan and South Korea. The 1920s were a time of real-estate speculation, but in commercial property, much of it still in use. There was comparatively little new building in the 1930s except for temporary housing at construction sites. The commercial buildings are overbuilt by contemporary standards; the McMansions will be too weird for people to want them.  People can like 'quirky'... but turrets? Ballroom-like living rooms?

The real devaluation so far in this 4T is that of labor. What Karl Marx said of the proletariat -- people who must work for a living -- still holds true: they have nothing to sell but their labor. About a century ago the capitalist class decided to save itself from the hazard of a Bolshevik-style revolution by making consumers out of industrial workers. Consumerism saved capitalism. Today the economic elites stand for ideologies that debase the worker, and the American economic order already has most of the features of fascist political orders without the torture chambers and killing pits. The devaluation of labor is far more destructive than the devaluation of Continental or Confederate currency because people started doing things that create wealth. The great meltdown of 1929-1932 led to the disappearance of speculative activity as a means of getting rich quick and led many to start shoe-string businesses that involve people having to accept low yields, cater to nearly-destitute customers who are not much worse off than the owners, and develop long-term relationships for business entities that would not be cash cows for at least a score years if nothing happened in the meantime.

The sole defense of capitalism aside from terrorist brutality is to repudiate the perception that the capitalist system works exclusively to the benefit of economic elites -- in essence, to make the Marxist stereotype of the early capitalism in which workers toiled in sweatshops only to get near-starvation rations that low incomes allow and to 'enjoy' those rations in fetid, fire-trap slums.  In effect, a stereotype of capitalism such as this:





must be void if capitalism is to survive except as the objective of an authoritarian nightmare.

[Hintergrund]

In Ancient Rome, free people gave up because they couldn't compete with slaves.

Today we have at least two kinds of slaves: Illegals working in sweatshops, and machines. Robots, computers, whatnot.

[Kinser79]

(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.

[pbrower2a]

(05-18-2019, 11:57 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Housing costs are way too high, obscenely high in some expensive blue areas. I don't see that when younger people inherit them that they will sell them at lower prices just because they are younger. They won't be so young then anyway.

I think the cost of housing is part of our 4T. It is part of the economic crisis, which hurts young people the most. The crisis stems from the mostly-3T neo-liberal free-market ideology, in power since 1980. Now we have a governor in CA who is trying to do something about it. And some other Democratic Party politicians. I don't know how far the prices can be lowered for how many more people. Some people have to move out because of the high prices. That may also reduce the prices, but I don't know by how much or how soon.

The last 4T also saw ongoing economic pressures on the majority of the people, until the war got going. The specifics were different, but the effect was similar. And the cause was the same: libertarian free-market economics policies of the Republican Party.

One obvious solution will be to de-concentrate the economic activity (and government!) so that people don't have to flock to New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco-San Jose, and Seattle just to get jobs. People used to do well enough in places like Detroit, Cleveland, Rochester, Milwaukee, and St. Louis... that is over for now. Those cities all used to be prosperous -- and are not now.

There could hardly be an economic ideology more adept at concentrating wealth and power than what underpins contemporary America. Were I to give advice to youth, it would be to remind them that all that matters is that they make someone already filthy-rich even more filthy-rich and accept that what those ungrateful people offer you is nothing more than the means of bare survival. If you get a well-paying job your income will be devoured in rent so that you can live in one of the few places in which you can ply your intellectual trade and in interest payments for student loans to get the qualifications. Suffer with a smile, knowing that any lapse will ruin you. The people who really rule -- the landlords, loan-sharks, and lobbyists -- are the real power here, and toil is something that those people demand but must never be compensated well enough to allow happiness. The executive elites are on no higher ethical plane than Henry Clay Frick, and that they are no more competent than the nomenklatura of a typical 'socialist' state.
Narcissistic figures dominate in culture, industry, and politics.

Our institutions were built for a different economic structure, one in which business was mostly small so that the well-off could never become a domineering elite. It was also built for Christian ethics (OK, maybe it is not the religious identity that matters) that demand moral behavior even from the rich-and-powerful instead of indulging those elites. The only God in America is Mammon, and his apostle is Ayn Rand.

My brother tells me that he has met several people who have read her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and those people became @$$holes for six months after the time-consuming experience. I read The Brothers Karamazov and Les Miserables instead, so length is not the problem.

[David Horn]

(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.

They will be converted to multi-family housing, with smaller in-fills built between them.  Almost all neighborhoods slide downhill after a while, but McMansionland seems poised for a quicker than normal decline.

[pbrower2a]

(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.

[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.

[pbrower2a]

(05-20-2019, 03:24 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

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

It is. It is the sort of housing that people tolerate until children start appearing. With lots of other kids with little  else to do around, these places become crime-infested nightmares. Such a 'middle class value' as owning a car there is not so easy. It is possible to manage such a place if one has such an organization as the KGB, Stasi, or Comites de la Defensa de la Revolucion in the area... but that somehow offends American sensibilities. We are not a nation of snitches.

...It may be that childless families will become increasingly normal due to the cost of housing. For such families, one bedroom and one bath might be adequate -- with a two-car garage. Those were the 'starter homes' of the new post-WWII middle class. Such housing was better than the pre-WWII flats that people got out of as housing shortages got a solution.

Living space is a luxury beyond a certain point. So might be having children.

Quote: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.

The assumption has been that the quality of housing affects the quality of life -- and of people living in such housing. Question: do people really need mansions? Quarter-acre lots?

Rooming houses have typically been temporary situations, as for farm laborers who go to the cities to work in the burgeoning industries of the time. They are not places to which one brings home a date, as they afford no privacy necessary even for intellectual intimacy. They often offer no parking. People on probationary status on the job might as well live in such places.

Figure also that Big Business prefers that people not live in temporary accommodations. People might be more scared to lose their jobs if they have something to lose, like having to decide what clothes, furnishings, and entertainment  devices and media they must chuck so that they can put everything into the trunk of a car and move on.

Real-estate interests are powerful in America. I wonder if people will trust those interests so much after Donald Trump, the slumlord of the soul.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Single family homes have been a prominent part of the American Dream. It is simply assumed that everybody aspires to that life style.

[pbrower2a]

(05-21-2019, 08:22 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Single family homes have been a prominent part of the American Dream.  It is simply assumed that everybody aspires to that life style.

But what is easy for the working class to achieve when America has a population of 150 million is not so easy to  achieve when America has a population of 350 million, especially when economic opportunity is so heavily concentrated in so few places and labor is incredibly cheap -- and on precarious terms of employment.

[Kinser79]

PBR as usual you completely miss the point of asset stripping. When one asset strips a building sure they take the crystal chandelier (if such is there) but the are far more commonly after the steel, copper, and other material components. In such case it matters little how good or poor the construction is, what matters is what is there and how much is there.

Also electrical and plumbing copper commands a higher scrap price than other copper sources.

[Kinser79]

(05-21-2019, 08:22 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Single family homes have been a prominent part of the American Dream.  It is simply assumed that everybody aspires to that life style.

An "American Dream" that only started with the GI parents of the Boomers and will likely die with the Boomers.  Prior to that the American Dream was land to farm which often had a single family dwelling on it (particularly in the North, not so much in the South--as plantation economics really requires a village to pull off).  That American Dream died in the 1890s with the closure of the frontier.  Between the Missionaries and the GIs being parents the American Dream was to have an industrial job in a city.  Cities do not lend themselves to single family housing very well being far more dense.

The emerging American Dream may well include a return to urban mixed use zoning and the abandonment of highly inefficient single family housing tracts in suburbia, which was born out of specific economic and political situations and cannot and will not exist without them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieg9j7dZ8q4

Normally I'd embed the video but it is some 75 minutes long.

[pbrower2a]

(05-22-2019, 03:58 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: PBR as usual you completely miss the point of asset stripping.  When one asset strips a building sure they take the crystal chandelier (if such is there) but the are far more commonly after the steel, copper, and other material components.  In such case it matters little how good or poor the construction is, what matters is what is there and how much is there.

Also electrical and plumbing copper commands a higher scrap price than other copper sources.

Any demolition will facilitate the removal of desirable scrap  as a partial reduction in cost. Still-usable electrical and plumbing equipment  has recovery value. Structural materials will be recycled.

So?

[Kinser79]

Such will not be formally organized demolition. It will be less Joe's Demolition Company and more Joe and his cousins get together one winter day and strip out an abandoned house and haul the scrap off in their pick up truck.

[Skabungus]

Why is this news?  Why is any of this a question?  We've seen this all before.  This is the natural progression of real estate though the cycle.  See The Appraisal of Real Estate 14th Edition.  The cycle is Recovery-Expansion-Hyper Supply-Recession. This happens on a local basis but is also quite visible at the macro level.  It is pretty simple the McMansion phase is over.  It was over even before 2008 with markets for 3,500- 4,500sf homes tanking starting in 2005.  Those paying attention (I get paid to pay attention) saw it coming with books like "The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live" (Susanka) Paperback – April 1, 2001 and tons of articles on rethinking America's housing market popping up throughout the early 00's.  

McMansions decay pretty fast.  Most housing stock built in the mid 90's through mid 00's was built with average grade materials to save money and don't hold up well.  New housing (that sells to folks other than Boomers) is notably smaller and simpler, with a better quality construction.  Note also the advent of the "Tiny House".  Though the tiny house idea was birthed to provide a long term solution to housing homeless people, it's become popular and cities throughout the midwest are accommodating (albeit reluctantly) tiny houses in zoning codes.  Tiny houses.  Houses from 600-900sf in size.  Susanka stated waaaay back in 2000 that 1,200sf was probably the ideal size for homes moving into the future, based on earning power and family size.  She wasn't wrong.  

The McMansions will be absorbed into the market and go the way of all housing trends.  A few will hang around a long time, but most will disappear in favor of new construction as they age.  No worries.  Glad to see them go.

What is infinitely more interesting from my perspective is how the new perspective on housing is shaping up.  Live-work developments in old office parks and warehouses, intentional communities (hey it's not just for hippies anymore!) and increased interest in urban living have reduced the threats of urban sprawl significantly.  All these options reduce the load on community services and utilities quite significantly.  Add to that the recent boom in municipal efforts toward solar and wind power and you begin to see an America that is returning to a frugal, utilitarian mindset, at least when it comes to the way people view affording a place to live and work.  Nobody these days is asking for a lap pool in their basement.

[pbrower2a]

(05-28-2019, 10:36 AM)Skabungus Wrote: Why is this news?  Why is any of this a question?  We've seen this all before.  This is the natural progression of real estate though the cycle.  See The Appraisal of Real Estate 14th Edition.  The cycle is Recovery-Expansion-Hyper Supply-Recession. This happens on a local basis but is also quite visible at the macro level.  It is pretty simple the McMansion phase is over.  It was over even before 2008 with markets for 3,500- 4,500sf homes tanking starting in 2005.  Those paying attention (I get paid to pay attention) saw it coming with books like "The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live" (Susanka) Paperback – April 1, 2001 and tons of articles on rethinking America's housing market popping up throughout the early 00's.

 

The Double-Zero decade was the one in which Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt made sense again after the 1920s. George Babbitt, as we all know, was a real-estate developer who sold people houses that they could not really afford and a loud proponent of Boosterism. The eighty-year cycle  necessary for extinguishing the memories of people who lived through the time even as children made the Double Zero decade analogous in many ways to the Roaring Twenties in the celebrity culture, corporate-oriented politics, and bubble economy... culminating in the bursting of the bubble in the analogous panics of 1929 and 2008 -- seventy-nine years apart.

I could see things going very wrong upon reading an article in Business Week in 2005 that detailed the overt fraud in bundling fecal loans that underpinned sales of too much house to people who could never afford them. Criminals in three-piece suits sold those bundles to investors who were going to get burned -- and did. The only question that I had was how long the financial crooks would get away with it. America would have been wise to invest more in plant and equipment so that people would have well-paying jobs in manufacturing and would be able to buy modest little houses in the suburbs. The Double-Zero decade had even more equivalents of George Babbitt selling people houses that they could never afford.

Quote:McMansions decay pretty fast.  Most housing stock built in the mid 90's through mid 00's was built with average grade materials to save money and don't hold up well.  New housing (that sells to folks other than Boomers) is notably smaller and simpler, with a better quality construction.  Note also the advent of the "Tiny House".  Though the tiny house idea was birthed to provide a long term solution to housing homeless people, it's become popular and cities throughout the midwest are accommodating (albeit reluctantly) tiny houses in zoning codes.  Tiny houses.  Houses from 600-900sf in size.  Susanka stated waaaay back in 2000 that 1,200sf was probably the ideal size for homes moving into the future, based on earning power and family size.  She wasn't wrong.

Bad design? Good for a one-time sale to someone who will never be able to sell the house to someone who wants to buy it except to redevelop the property with its wasteful land use. Poor materials? That will imply faster deterioration, and that the property will be unmarketable even if the architectural plan is solid. I'm guessing that even the plumbing is compromised. Needless to say, infrastructure is compromised to keep costs down. Roads are pie-crust.

The small houses built for returning WWII veterans were built to last the lifetime of an owner and possibly his first offspring. To be sure they may be inadequate by current middle-class standards (try selling a 2-bedroom, one-bath house) -- but they were solid enough that if the owner had to sell for an upgrade in space, he could get something suited to a family with a son and daughter.

Quote:The McMansions will be absorbed into the market and go the way of all housing trends.  A few will hang around a long time, but most will disappear in favor of new construction as they age.  No worries.  Glad to see them go.

Demolition and redevelopment as the property becomes more valuable without the house than with it. As one gets replaced with apartments, the others will face much the same fate. These places are even worse than the 'little boxes' that Malvina Reynolds excoriated:





The permitted expressions of individuality become banal conformity -- commercially profitable, yet awful.

A hint: people who have come from disadvantaged backgrounds to huge money all of a sudden, such as professional athletes and winners of huge lottery payouts often waste huge amounts of money on a 'dream house' that proves a horrible investment. Builders have found ways to sell their dreams profitably to people who have more money than discretion. Thus McMansions.

Quote:What is infinitely more interesting from my perspective is how the new perspective on housing is shaping up.  Live-work developments in old office parks and warehouses, intentional communities (hey it's not just for hippies anymore!) and increased interest in urban living have reduced the threats of urban sprawl significantly.  All these options reduce the load on community services and utilities quite significantly.  Add to that the recent boom in municipal efforts toward solar and wind power and you begin to see an America that is returning to a frugal, utilitarian mindset, at least when it comes to the way people view affording a place to live and work.  Nobody these days is asking for a lap pool in their basement.

There is nothing quite like a hard time that steers people into a frugal, communitarian, utilitarian, and modest mindset. Such is the difference between a 3T and a 1T.

[AspieMillennial]

(05-28-2019, 10:36 AM)Skabungus Wrote: Why is this news?  Why is any of this a question?  We've seen this all before.  This is the natural progression of real estate though the cycle.  See The Appraisal of Real Estate 14th Edition.  The cycle is Recovery-Expansion-Hyper Supply-Recession. This happens on a local basis but is also quite visible at the macro level.  It is pretty simple the McMansion phase is over.  It was over even before 2008 with markets for 3,500- 4,500sf homes tanking starting in 2005.  Those paying attention (I get paid to pay attention) saw it coming with books like "The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live" (Susanka) Paperback – April 1, 2001 and tons of articles on rethinking America's housing market popping up throughout the early 00's.  

McMansions decay pretty fast.  Most housing stock built in the mid 90's through mid 00's was built with average grade materials to save money and don't hold up well.  New housing (that sells to folks other than Boomers) is notably smaller and simpler, with a better quality construction.  Note also the advent of the "Tiny House".  Though the tiny house idea was birthed to provide a long term solution to housing homeless people, it's become popular and cities throughout the midwest are accommodating (albeit reluctantly) tiny houses in zoning codes.  Tiny houses.  Houses from 600-900sf in size.  Susanka stated waaaay back in 2000 that 1,200sf was probably the ideal size for homes moving into the future, based on earning power and family size.  She wasn't wrong.  

The McMansions will be absorbed into the market and go the way of all housing trends.  A few will hang around a long time, but most will disappear in favor of new construction as they age.  No worries.  Glad to see them go.

What is infinitely more interesting from my perspective is how the new perspective on housing is shaping up.  Live-work developments in old office parks and warehouses, intentional communities (hey it's not just for hippies anymore!) and increased interest in urban living have reduced the threats of urban sprawl significantly.  All these options reduce the load on community services and utilities quite significantly.  Add to that the recent boom in municipal efforts toward solar and wind power and you begin to see an America that is returning to a frugal, utilitarian mindset, at least when it comes to the way people view affording a place to live and work.  Nobody these days is asking for a lap pool in their basement.

There's new McMansions being built in my area in the economic recovery. They aren't over by any means. I hardly ever saw McMansions around 2001.