Can These $20,000 Houses Save the American Dream?

[eridani]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/05/19/rural_studio_builds_brand_new_20_000_houses_in_alabama.html?wpsrc=upworthy

Rural Studio, the celebrated undergraduate program of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at Auburn University, has been educating citizen architects since it was founded in 1993 by D.K. Ruth and the late Samuel Mockbee. Rural Studio at Twenty: Designing and Building in Hale County, Alabama by Andrew Freear and Elena Barthel with Andrea Oppenheimer Dean will be released tomorrow by Princeton Architectural Press. Here at the Eye, the authors share an excerpt of the book that centers on the 20K House project, an academic design-and-build program that delivers affordable housing for locals and is currently being developed as a commercial product.

[Samantha]

1. Super cool

Who could ask for anything more? Be it ever so humble, there is no place ....

Sam

[Rod Beauvex]

2. Houses are outrageous.

Houses cost three times what they should.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. Depends on where they are....

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Cleveland-OH/house_type/24115_rid/0-10000_price/0-38_mp/priced_sort/41.63392,-81.33213,41.288642,-81.965218_rect/10_zm/0_mmm/

[chillfactor]

3. looks very nice to me....

I would love one of these homes....however...I have no aspirations to move to Alabama....

[ErikJ]

4. No solid foundations-I wonder how they do in tornadoes or earthquakes

I'd like to see the plans for the foundation.

[kentauros]

20. They probably do as well as houses built pier and beam style.

Those have survived hurricanes (which spawn tornadoes) you know.

In looking at the photos, they all appear to be pier and beam, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that for a "foundation." It's been a viable method of support for much longer than your standard concrete-slab style of foundation. And a concrete slab is no guarantee a structure will do better in tornadoes or earthquakes.

A diagram for those that aren't familiar with this method:

[Aerows]

36. Put down hurricane straps, too, along the sides

and they are probably better than most.

[dixiegrrrrl]

45. and a tornado shelter.

I know where these are. Smack dab in tornado belt of the state.

[freshwest]

5. Cool, I've looked into Martin and Tiny Houses that can be made permanent.

The problem is the cost of the land and zoning laws. People with more money don't want their property values to decline due to low cost housing near them. If a $20K house is built in a street with houses worth much more, it changes the demographic on the market.

I saw this firsthand with the SNL boondoggle when they put foreclosed homes on the market and people in the neigbhorhood could not sell their houses for even the tax assessed value which was lower than market.

Municipalities favor the higher priced homes to get more tax money.

And then there is the cost of the land, which is often more than $20K itself.

In a very rural area without zoning laws, with cheap land, and that's not often the case, either, it is not undoable.

Plus the permits, uitlity link ups and etc. But a house that size is appealing.

.

[dixiegrrrrl]

46. another factor lowering the living cost here in Ala

( and in some other states)
is the Homestead Law.
any owner 65 or older, or disabled, does not have to pay property taxes. They can own several acres, free and clear.

[alittlelark]

6. Have loved tiny houses for 10 years or more....

[LeftyMom]

7. I find these articles trying to sex up shanty living deeply disturbing.

[grahamhgreen]

9. Side by side & you got a shotgun shack

[Fearless]

11. Indeed

Poverty is NOT glamorous and should not be trendy.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. No kidding. It feels like an effort to get us to expect less....

Before long they will offer the cubicle from The 5th Element and expect us to consider ourselves lucky.

[RKP5637]

29. Good point, I think that often, less and less, squeezed more and more, mass re-education to

live with far less, while others live with far more, and often having nothing to do with individual talents, capabilities, education and fortitude ...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

33. Hell, they used to pay enough to support a family....

Now both parents are supposed to work and rent but never own.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

14. You find it disturbing because you see so much aimed at us middle classers

that is designed to convince us that living with less is fashionable.

[alittlelark]

15. It's a movement trying to get away from McMansions

People looking to stop needing room for 'stuff'.


I live in the Silicon Valley Bay Area. When this house (2000 sq ft) is sold it will immediately be torn down (though in good condition) and replaced by a 3200-4200 sq ft 'Mc Mansion' .... Not a Good Thing.


We NEED to re-think the way we live now...our grandparents thought a 2000 sq ft house was only for the RICH....


Think about it.

[LeftyMom]

17. I don't know who you're lecturing,

but rest assured I'm in no danger of being able to afford a mcmansion, on the off chance that I wanted one, which I don't.

But living in a glorified garage kit without cabinets or closets or interior walls is not a reasonable or especially livable housing solution. That poor man in the photo in the OP hardly has a thing and that place looks painfully cluttered.

edit: FWIW, my grandmother lived in way more than 2000 square feet. Old farmhouses are enormous, since people used to have hella kids, but so are urban Victorians and even Craftsman bungalows are decent sized. Small houses didn't really become the norm until the postwar housing boom, and the driving force behind that architecture was fitting the selling price in right under the maximum for a GI loan. Also those houses tended to have attention to interior detail which modern homes lack, so comparing them to a scarcely-finished people coop with $50 worth of modular shelving and exposed pipes is silly.

[eridani]

35. Tiny houses are also quite popular among people with more than modest incomes

They are looking for mobility, adventure, and less time maintaining their living spaces.

http://www.houselogic.com/photos/home-thoughts/tiny-houses-pictures/slide/89-square-feet/

[Blanks]

38. They were on smaller parcels...

(Except the farm houses obviously) the problem with the ranch styles that we build now is that they push everything farther from the commercial areas.

I lived in a nice sized house right behind the grocery store in a small town. All of the houses were bungalow style and very close together. You're right, it isn't the sizes of the houses that are bigger (although frequently they're only one story), but the lots are bigger and designed so that we have to own not just one internal combustion engine, but one for each working person and a lawn mower.

I used to get around on a bike in that small town and I worked at the convenience store and the court house. People want to have a privacy fence between all of their neighbors too.

We all have too much stuff, we don't need more space - we need less stuff

[Suich]

19. Same here! (Seattle)

My house was built in 1914, classic Craftsman, clear pine molding (rare today), oak floors, leaded glass windows, fireplace, 1600 sq. ft., BUT no double sinks , walk-in closets, or granite counter tops. It DOES have "good bones," though!

I could sell it for over $500K, it would be torn down, and a 3,000 sq. ft. house, with the same footprint as mine, would be built.

Not gonna happen, as long as I live!

[Elwood P Dowd]

18. Maybe you should see what they WERE living in before the school built these houses for them.

Last edited Sat May 24, 2014, 02:29 AM - Edit history (1)

Most are extremely poor and retired living on a very limited SS income in a dirt-poor county. I'm retired myself and living in a small 700 square-foot home. The Auburn people that do much of the work should be commended for helping these people move out of old run-down shacks almost as bad as what you see in third-world countries. That is what you would really find disturbing.

[Blanks]

39. That's the key...

At least I think it is. I will be retired in 10 to 15 years and I want to be able to live in a house I can afford and not have a whole bunch of stuff to take care of. I would prefer to have a nice quiet place where I am around other people with similar interests - which looks like a little exercise, a little gardening and a lot of documentaries.

I've seen the kind of houses that you're talking about and I agree - we would all be better off if we tore down those old houses and built humble little homes for seniors. Ideally with solar panels on the roof.

[nomorenomore08]

41. Consider me ambivalent then, I suppose. If this project actually improves some people's living

conditions, then great. I just don't like the idea of everyone else being conditioned to live with so little, while at the same time more and more wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer (and often downright incompetent) hands.

[X_Digger]

44. You've got posters telling us that we're going to have to give up our cars and move to the cities.

I believe it was in one of the 'interstate toll' threads that someone said:

the whole point is to make driving more difficult on the people.

And coupled with the 'tiny houses are sexy' threads.. yeah.

I'm right there with ya- something stinks.

[weyes2013]

10. Houses cost three times what they should.

Houses cost three times what they should.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

13. Houses cost three times what they should.

You missed one.

[My Good Babushka]

23. Do houses cost three times what they should?

I wasn't sure.

[SoCalDem]

16. But but but... where does the 19ft sectional go?

and the king sized bed?

and the 12 foot kitchen island?



we are downsizing "housewise", but we are needing to find property in Washington state that has a humongous out-building for all my husband's hobby-shit..

[KittyWampus]

27. you forgot to mention the 90" flat screen tv.

[RKP5637]

30. Where's the granite kitchen and baths? n/t

[DontTreadOnMe]

21. I think these are a great idea

$20K is affordable to most everyone, especially college students just entering the job market.

These would be fantastic in very rural areas, like on lakes or in the deep woods or mountains.
Provide electric and internet connection, and you have an inexpensive cabin.

This is not "poverty living".. what a foolish comment.

How about "save all your money and travel the world".. and when you need to go "home", this is a inexpensive as it gets.

Think of it as.. I don't need to collect "things" to put in my "home"... I would rather save as much money as possible for the future. This allows you to have a roof over your house and get to your work.. or work self-employed.

If you took a mountain area in the Catskills Mtns - just an hour north of New York City.. and built 100 of these.. they would sell out in 30 days.

[gwheezie]

22. I live in a rural county with some really poor people

who don't have electricity or plumbing, some of the homes are old single wides, some look to be old outbuildings. These homes would be very liveable and affordable. Although I have seen some modular cabin kits that are less expensive but you'd have to get someone to do all the site work and build it, not to mention the appliances etc so it might work out to be the same amount in the end.

[Lee-Lee]

24. I like this. We have inflated what a "middle class" home is now, making it unaffordable

When I go back and look at the home I grew up in, by the time I was a teen we were a comfortable middle class working family. On the upper half of lower/middle, but comfortable.

When I look at that home now, it would be considered lower class. Wood construction, small lot, just (Gasp!) one bathroom.

When I look at what people call a middle class home now, we would have seen that as rich, and nobody I knew but people whose parents were doctors or lawyers lived like that.

We don't need everything being sold to us, and thinking we do is moving good, comfortable living out of reach as we go into debt perpetually trying to afford not what we need, but what we are conditioned to think we need.

[reformist2]

25. House prices are so high because we bid them up in a panic to absurd levels.

And given that few ever sell their house without buying another, most people never enjoy the profits they've made on paper. In the end, the only winners in the real estate game are the banks (as usual).

[TBF]

26. I think they would be great here and worldwide BUT

I will not rest until the Koch Bros. are also living in one.

Multiple homes, yachts, planes etc for the moneyed class while the rest of us toil and live in tiny houses to support their luxurious lifestyles. I am not for that.

But I do like the little houses.

[nomorenomore08]

42. Ain't that America... Little pink houses for you and me...

[TBF]

43. Yup, little pink houses for 99% of us

anyway.

[liberal N proud]

28. Appear to be well constructed, clean and comfortable

Nice for someone to get into a home.

[TreasonousBastard]

31. I've lived in smaller places...

that weren't nearly as nice. Try a NYC "studio" apartment that started out as a bedroom in a larger apartment.

I could easily live in that place if I got rid of the half of my stuff that I rarely use anyway.

[Jefferson23]

32. I find this all very encouraging..wonderful the possibilities and considering the impact

of climate change, some areas will undoubtedly become uninhabitable. This could
prevent a devastating effect and could facilitate a greener America.

Have you seen these? I think they're awesome:

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/


K&R, great thread

[whopis01]

34. It's good for someone at the median of SS or above.

But we still need a decent housing solutions for all those who fall below the median.

[Aerows]

37. That looks like "The Rent is Too Damn High" mayoral candidate there

I hope he found a place where the rent isn't too damn high. He was a character .

[Ilsa]

40. Where's the bathroom?

I want counter space in it, too.