Thus said Dave Smith on Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:41:21 MDT: > > Higher than what? To which standard of quality are you referring? > > Perhaps you missed some of the earlier posts in the thread.
No, actually I didn't. And in fact, I may have even agreed at one point that the quality of today's homes seems less than it was 50--60 years ago. > Earlier in the thread, there seemed to be consensus that homes built > today are made with shoddy workmanship and cheaper materials than > homes of yesteryear. Some are some aren't. Who decides? Assuming that I am allowed to reject your anecdotal evidence, much like you rejected mine, let's proceed... > Example 1: I live in a neighborhood where virtually every house is > brick on all 4 sides. The houses in the neighborhood range from 50 to > 90 years-old. This was not a high end neighborhood when it was built, > and yet today, you'd have to pay premium prices to get an all brick > house. ... Why can you not buy such a house today without paying > through the nose? Let's see... how big are these homes? I'm willing to bet that they are not much more than 1200 sq ft (probably less on average in actuality). I imagine that if consumers wanted smaller homes, like they were built in the 50's, then they could also afford the same level of quality. When homes get larger, for them to stay affordable to the masses, they obviously must take it out from somewhere (in this case we are talking about quality). Here's an interesting thing to research... how much do homes like those in your neighborhood sell for? Compare that to prices of new homes with the same features, size, and lot. > Example 2: My parents bought a large, new home 8 years ago in Northern > Virginia in an upscale neighborhood. 1 example of anecdotal evidence, denied. Also, I don't consider appliances part of home builder quality. They don't have to purchase them from the builder and they certainly don't affect the craftmanship put into the home being built. Of course your typical reply will be coming: ``they didn't have a choice.'' > Do you think consumers *want* that? If consumers have no idea what they want they the are making the biggest purchase in their life, they have no business making it. And if they want to join in the home buying frenzy, buyer beware. The school of hard knocks can be tough to get through. > Example 3: (again from my house). More anecdotal evidence that can be tossed out. How big is your brick house? > Why is this? I don't know for sure, but I have some theories: You sure seem pretty convinced that it is greedy builders (and just to make it sound quasi economic you throw in ``coupled with higher demand.'') And of course builders now suck, they have lost their touch in creating great homes and no longer have the skills. Shouldn't we all be COBOL programmers; man their code was just supreme! > Do you agree with my examples? If so, what's the explanation in your > opinion? I might agree with your examples in that they show that some homes were built with quality. I don't agree that this represents the workmanship or quality of all homes for any given period. But I clearly don't agree that greedy builders are at fault. I'm of the opinion that consumers get the quality that they can afford. If we all agree that the quality of homes has gone down, that might just mean that people can no longer afford higher quality homes. Or maybe people are not as into purchasing well built homes thus allowing more money for other things like boats, RVs and other big ticket items. Maybe monetary inflation, the kind generated by the Federal Reserve System, is actually harming our economy to the point where the average affordability has gone down. Andy -- [-----------[system uptime]--------------------------------------------] 9:33pm up 40 min, 1 user, load average: 1.06, 1.07, 1.00 /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
