Those aren’t invalid things to drive a markets costs. I would say modern building codes that are used to ensure safety standards and accessibility are true drivers of cost. Achieving new standards without a cost increase is unrealistic.
Older higher quality doors need to be replaced with inferior quality doors that have UL stickers.
They did for my project. Code compliance number driver of cost by a longshot in change of use renovation project. The sprinkler system and the 4’ vertical lift cost as much as the 12,000 sq foot building on 1 acre.
Structures do cost more. This is mostly increases in labor and code compliance costs. In hot markets the structure cost is dwarfed by the land cost though. There is only so much prime real estate available. That won't stop techies from trying to build a house in a factory to bring down prices, even though that makes little sense.
Here, in Ireland, the cost is pushed up mostly by planning. There's plenty of space, but due to planning (mostly limited by NIMBYs and apparently professional objectors), it is difficult to actually get approval for anything.
There's plenty of space and myriad of old houses in a state of decomposition, but only houses can be built, and apartments are scarce. People are going into bidding wars where you need to throw an extra 20% just to win the bid.
It certainly isn't the cost of materials or labor costs.
Of course not, but the policies are driven by politics that prevent the market from providing what people want. High housing prices aren't a market failure, they are due to NIMBYism.
In states that have much lower rates of regulation, house prices are still up off the charts, yea, still way lower than California, but they have pushed prices out of reach of the people that live there, so there has to be multiple pieces occurring (for example low interest rates for a very long time).
>Housing went up globally because of local policies all across the world all at the same time, huh?
1. source for "Housing went up globally"?
2. You don't really need every jurisdiction to by NIMBY for global house prices to go up. For instance if half the world is NIMBY and the other half is "meh", and housing prices in the NIMBY half went up 50% while the other half stayed the same, you'd still observe that "Housing went up globally".
