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The Great Compression: Thanks to soaring housing prices, the era of the 400-square-foot subdivision house is upon us (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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Robert Lanter lives in a 600-square-foot house that can be traversed in five seconds and vacuumed from a single outlet. He doesn’t have a coffee table in the living room because it would obstruct the front door. When relatives come to visit, Mr. Lanter says jokingly, but only partly, they have to tour one at time.

Each of these details amounts to something bigger, for Mr. Lanter’s life and the U.S. housing market: a house under $300,000, something increasingly hard to find. That price allowed Mr. Lanter, a 63-year-old retired nurse, to buy a new single-family home in a subdivision in Redmond, Ore., about 30 minutes outside Bend, where he is from and which is, along with its surrounding area, one of Oregon’s most expensive housing markets.

Mr. Lanter’s house could easily fit on a flatbed truck, and is dwarfed by the two-story suburban homes that prevail on the blocks around him. But, in fact, there are even smaller homes in his subdivision, Cinder Butte, which was developed by a local builder called Hayden Homes. Some of his neighbors live in houses that total just 400 square feet — a 20-by-20-foot house attached to a 20-by-20-foot garage.

This is not a colony of “tiny houses,” popular among minimalists and aesthetes looking to simplify their lives. For Mr. Lanter and his neighbors, it’s a chance to hold on to ownership.

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[–] Nougat@kbin.social 50 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This would be fantastic if it were arranged in a mixed-type development to include apartments, small homes, larger homes, and commercial. Plopping a bunch of little houses into a single space is just piling the less advantaged on top of each other so you don't have to look at them.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 2 years ago

Thank you, I came here to comment something similar myself. The real issue is the land these properties are on. If they're crammed next to each other like sardine cans, you're not giving them the opportunity to say have a yard and a dog. The idea of having a backyard barbecue at a place like that is likely out of the question as well.

The size of the house itself is perfect for some people, like me and my partner for example, but the size of the property likely is not. I'm okay with living in a small space, but I'd also enjoy having a small amount of privacy as well as a yard to grow vegetables and native flowers. Further, my partner needs a service animal desperately, but she needs a medium sized dog like a lab or a retriever to stay balanced, but we understand its unfair to try to live with a dog that size in a tiny apartment without a yard and the nearest park a few blocks away. As a service animal, its quality of life matters as well.

If we're just sardine-canning these places, they may as well be apartments or condos anyway.