Tag Archives: single-family homes

Win a cheaper single-family home via lottery in a Chicago suburb

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Many Americans would benefit from affordable single-family homes. The Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village set up a lottery for ten local residents to get one such unit:

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Inside a room at the Belvedere banquet hall in Elk Grove Village, 10 families got the chance to pick their new single-family home — priced below market rates and for village residents only — in a perhaps first-of-its-kind municipal housing initiative aimed at helping ease the housing affordability crisis…

The village bought the 2.5-acre site — the former Elk Grove Presbyterian Church property — for $965,000 in 2023, and recently sold it to the Mount Prospect-based Nicholas Family of Companies for $1 million. That recoups the village’s costs to purchase the site and tear down the church, officials say.

The deal also allows the homes to be “moderately priced,” officials said, at between $466,000 and $508,000…

Fourteen showed up to the lottery, and 10 of them picked homes on Saturday.

Names were drawn one by one. Each potential buyer had five minutes to pick from the available lots.

Then they signed purchase agreements and related forms and gave the developer a $2,500 cashier’s check. A year from now, they will be the first residents in the Tonne Grove development, where 20 single-family homes will be built on the northwest corner of Tonne Road and Elk Grove Boulevard.

Several quick thoughts in response:

  1. The property became available because of the closing of a church. According to the still-existing Facebook page, the church held its last service in June 2023 and the building was demolished in April 2024. This is one potential fate for closed churches: the land is redeveloped for other purposes.
  2. The lottery method reminds me of a framing of the documentary Waiting For Superman where families are in a lottery to get into desirable schools. In both, the use of a lottery could invite questions: is this a public good that should only be available by lottery?
  3. It is interesting that only 14 people showed up to the lottery. Granted, there were numerous conditions potential homebuyers had to meet. I imagine similar lotteries throughout suburbia could invite many more participants.
  4. Was this a success? Will other suburbs copy this?

Prediction of 25 years until median American house worth $1 million

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A recent projection looked at how much American homes will be worth in a few decades:

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The median U.S. home price will likely hit $1 million around the year 2050, when the millennial generation is hitting the traditional age of retirement, a top housing economist has predicted.

“Essentially, in about 25 years the national median home price will be a million dollars,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors®, said at a conference in Washington, DC, on Tuesday. “It may be hard to envision that, but back in 1990, the national median price was $90,000.”…

Last month, the national median sales price for existing homes was nearly $430,000. Yun used multiple scenarios to project home prices out into the future, and says each scenario pointed to roughly the same timeline to hit $1 million: about 25 years.

This makes sense over time as inflation continues. Compared to the past, houses and many other goods are more expensive.

But three factors might make this hard to swallow for a number of people:

  1. How much will incomes and wages keep up with the price increase of houses? Will housing be further out of reach by 2050? A million dollar price for a home will be easier for people to understand if pay keeps up with those values.
  2. There will be people in housing who remember the lower prices of the past and a good number who will benefit from them. Those who owned homes in 2026 will recall the median at $430k and wonder – and enjoy, if selling – the new median of $1 million. Just as those who lived in the early Levittowns saw their homes increase in value over the decades, so will those who bought homes in the early 2000s.
  3. Some places will have much higher median home values in 2050 compared to others. While this is true today, that gap may grow and highlight differences between metropolitan regions.

I wonder if the biggest consequence of this continued rise in home values will be that houses in the United States will be regarded first and foremost as investments. If the median value can double in 25 years just by owning it, this can shape who owns homes and how they treat them.

5 days until Every Somewhere Sacred: caring for and learning from a suburban yard

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The yard for my suburban house is 0.26 acres. On all four sides, the house is surrounded by grass, bushes and trees, and wildlife. This is part of the American Dream: a suburban single-family home for a family framed by green grass and attractive landscaping. All that nature in the yard allows space for kids to play in a private setting free from threats. Or perhaps it is about keeping the lawn extra green and finely trimmed and completely free of weeds and leaves so that the nature around the home leads to a higher return on investment.

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What could it look like for Christians to expand their imagination about the nature around them rather than defaulting to American land stories and half-truths? In Every Somewhere Sacred, Ben Norquist and I consider better ways to engage with God’s plans for land and places.

What might that mean for my yard? It is certainly not “wild” land. Humans have been in this area for a long time, including Indigenous people and white settlers starting in the 1830s. This particular plot of land was farmed for decades before a developer started putting up houses in the early 1970s. As they put up houses, they shaped other features of the land, putting in a pond that some of the homes back up to, leaving numerous older trees along the main road through the neighborhood, and situating other homes to back up to a public park.

The land is not there just to serve my financial interests or the specific needs of my household. My yard is connected to other yards and it part of a broader ecosystem. Some animals and plants thrive in suburban settings. Others do not. I regularly see rabbits and have occasionally spotted foxes. Chickadees, robins, cardinals, red-tailed hawks, cormorants, and Canadian geese can be seen and heard. Insects are around. We have a small, simple garden that requires weeding and watering. I do not fertilize my yard or use weed killer. We occasionally trim the bushes and trees.

I want the nature around me to flourish. I am created, nature is created. My yard presents a small opportunity for me to learn from and with Creation about God and the world. We can tend, cultivate, plant, tear up when needed. We can work with nature rather than just extracting value from it.

In our book, we describe four different lenses different Christians have developed to help us better understand the physical world around us: land as gift, sacrament, kin, and home. If I took time with each of these and applied them to my own yard, what could I see differently? As I retrieve a basketball from the rose bushes next to the driveway planted by previous occupants of our home or when I drag the hose to the backyard to water our garden or when I put down mulch in the flower beds or when I hear a woodpecker in a nearby tall tree, how might I better see God and the world?

Trying to convince suburbanites that they should accept mid-size housing in their single-family home neighborhoods

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After the Illinois legislature did not pass the governor’s housing plans, one housing leader said he had this goal:

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Moving forward, Wolfenstein said he’s looking to draw a clearer picture for lawmakers of what midsize housing could look like in their communities — two-flats, townhomes, and other structures that could resemble single-family homes, he said.

When people in the American suburbs purchase a single-family home, they are used to having that home surrounded by other single-family homes. There might be townhomes or condos or apartments nearby but zoning in the United States typically separates different kinds of housing from each other. It is not common to find a suburban family-house next to a two-flat which is next to a townhouse.

How would suburbanites respond to midsize housing in their neighborhoods? They would likely talk about threats to property values. They might mention how it affects the character of their community. They could describe how they moved to their home because they liked the neighborhood as it was. These are common responses to potential changes in or near neighborhoods of single-family homes.

I also wonder how much the responses of suburbanites would be guided by their perceptions of who might live in midsize housing.

So could the midsize housing be designed in such a way that it does not look different than the single-family housing? Would it be at certain price points such that current residents do not feel threatened? It would be interesting to see the proposals and then get a sense of how many suburban residents and leaders would want to get behind such a vision.

One person living in a 30,000 square foot house

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How does one person live all by themselves in a giant home?

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“When you’re real, you realize when you mess up,” he told Rooks. “I live in a 30,000-square-foot house by myself. You don’t think I know I messed up?”

I could imagine a positive story emerging out of this. A kid’s movie where a girl or boy discovers they are all alone among 30,000 square feet. All the rooms. The unique options that come with such a home. They can do whatever they want.

Or it could be a heartwarming adult tale where someone somehow acquires such a house and finds ways to use it for good. People who need a place to stay. Space for people to pursue their passions. What had been a house for the wealthy becomes a blessing for many.

But the way this true scenario is briefly described above makes for a sad story. It is such a large house and only one person lives there. It could be full of family and friends. The large house represents success and wealth but it is empty of people. American homes are not just status symbols and investments; they are for households of people to enjoy.

The story could have a happy ending. Perhaps relationships can be rebuilt. All that space could be used to host family and friends. An empty big house does not have to stay empty.

How much smaller of a house do Millennials and Gen Z want?

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Younger American adults may now be less interested in owning a big house:

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This is very Millennial of me. My generation of Americans is the first in decades to collectively abandon the dream of a big house. In part, that’s likely a concession to reality: Real estate is so expensive that homeownership is, for many, a fantasy. But it also reflects changing ideas about what makes a good house and a good life, for both renters and owners. According to the National Association of Realtors’ most recent survey of American housing preferences, the majority of Millennials and Gen Zers would rather live in smaller homes in more walkable communities than larger ones in less dense areas. As a country, though, we aren’t building accordingly.

Smaller than what? This particular mentions “mansions” and “architectural marvels” in the opening and praises row houses in the latter part of the article. How small of a row house – 1,000 square feet, 1,500 square feet, etc.?

The median new home constructed in 2024 was 2,146 square feet. The United States has a lot of big houses. There is a reason it is known for McMansions. But that also means that there are plenty of units constructed that are under McMansion size.

Is it more about closer housing? This article hints at big houses amid sprawl whereas row houses offer density, walkability, and neighborhood opportunities. Or could it also be about household structures; younger generations planning to have fewer children need less space?

And are these smaller houses necessarily cheaper? Living in desirable areas – walkable, lots of cultural opportunities nearby – is not necessarily cheap, even with significantly smaller units.

We will see what happens as older generations eventually give up both McMansion era homes and other housing options plus new construction proceeds.

Zombie homes and the tax costs they might incur upon sale

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One firm suggests taxes are the reason for a number of zombie homes in the United States:

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Roughly 7.2 million single-family homes are sitting empty and being kept off the market, according to the real estate investment service Flock Homes, contributing to a nationwide housing shortage. But a closer look at these “zombie homes” shows that for many owners, selling just isn’t worth it…

According to Flock Homes, for many retirees “the tax bill triggered by a sale far exceeds the cost of simply leaving the home empty.” This includes capital gains taxes (paid on the profit from the sale) and depreciation recapture taxes (which sellers of rental properties face). The federal capital gains exemption, which applies to the sale of primary residences, was not factored into the analysis of vacant homes. Mortgage payments were not included in the analysis, since many older homeowners own their homes outright.

In the country’s biggest markets, the total tax liability for sellers 65 and older often adds up to more than $100,000 on a sale, and it can take years before the annual costs of keeping an empty home approach that amount. In the Los Angeles area, for example, the average exit tax for homeowners 65 and older is $185,000, while the annual cost of insurance, maintenance and property taxes on a zombie home is only about $10,000, the data showed.

Interesting calculations. In the short term, sitting on the zombie home appears to save money compared to selling now and paying a big tax bill. And while sitting on the zombie home, its value might go even higher!

At the same time, if someone sold one of these homes now, they would still likely pocket a lot of money even after paying taxes. The suggestion here is not that the tax costs would wipe out any gains from the sale; rather, the possible sellers just do not want to pay that much in taxes.

The overall pattern fits the shift of American houses from places to live and enjoy to commodities. Why sell if there is going to be a big tax bill? Why not try to gain as much as possible from the sale of a house?

How to stop your home from flooding (when the built environment makes it hard to avoid)

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These five tips for homeowners can help them avoid flooded properties. I have done a few of them myself.

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But there is only so much an individual homeowner can do if the built environment makes flooding more common. There are numerous causes: development on top of certain kinds of land and soils; numerous hard surfaces like roads; inadequate drainage at construction or more development after initial systems were put in; low-lying places compared to higher ground nearby. Having water in one’s house is no fun as it requires cleanup and repairs that can require a lot of time and money.

Several pictures used in this story seem to make this point. How much can be done for a house if the street right in front of the home is completely flooded? What can be done if roadways are shut down because of water? Where is all the water supposed to go?

These tips can help but a broader neighborhood or community-wide approach is needed to really address flooding issues. When new development is proposed near housing, NIMBY responses are common and water and flooding issues are often part of this. There may just be some truth in these concerns; changes to land might affect drainage and/or strain existing mitigation efforts. Water has to go somewhere and one homeowner may not really be able to address what is a larger concern.

“Informal housing” and affordable housing in the postwar suburbs

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Historian Michael Glass describes how informal housing units came to be in the postwar suburbs:

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Yes, this was a major surprise during my research. While scanning through microfilm reels of local newspapers, I kept coming across exposés of “illegal apartments,” that is, single-family homes illegally converted for multifamily occupancy. This took many forms: owners might rent out the basement, convert the garage into a dwelling, or wall off the attic as a separate apartment. Urban planners conducted comprehensive studies, and they estimated that by the 1970s between 10 and 20 percent of the single-family homes had been subdivided. A truly astounding statistic! 

In addition to being exclusionary and costly, the postwar suburban development model was completely unsustainable. Today the housing stock in Nassau County consists almost entirely of single-family dwellings. But people in the suburbs also needed cheap rentals, especially low-income families, young singles, divorced couples, retirees, and undocumented immigrants. Because zoning prohibited multifamily housing in most places, homeowners and landlords met these needs by converting single-family homes into apartments. 

The apartments were hidden, but certainly not a secret. Local officials absolutely knew the subdivisions were happening, and they let it continue because the informal apartments were meeting important housing needs. What I take from scholars of informal housing in the Global South – folks like Ananya Roy and Raquel Rolnick – is that turning a blind eye is itself a policy choice. It’s a way for government officials to manage housing needs in a context of scarcity. 

My basic argument is that informal apartments became the tacit solution to the affordable housing crisis. It helped resolve contradictions: local officials could simultaneously declare their opposition to new apartment construction while continuing to quietly tolerate informal units. 

People needed housing in the growing suburbs, homeowners adapted their properties, and local officials responded by not doing much. I wonder how much the lack of local reaction discovered was due to:

  1. The actual need for housing. How many units were needed in the postwar decades, particularly in comparison to today? Even as suburbs were growing rapidly, how much would local officials admit that even more housing was needed?
  2. The reference in the quote above to apartments is interesting as many suburban communities did consistently resist apartments because this might lead to different kinds of residents and affect the character and property values of nearby single-family homes. Informal housing is preferable to apartments until when?
  3. What happened when local residents complained about informal units? Say a resident suggests their neighbor has created an informal housing unit in violation of local regulations. How did local officials respond given #1 and #2 above? The quote above refers to media exposes so there must have been some local responses.

This might fit into a bigger story of suburban residents who since World War Two have used their homes and properties in ways that go against local regulations or what was expected. The idea of property rights is pretty important in many suburbs but so is the impulse to not have one’s property and housing values threatened by nearby land uses.

Canadian geese on my roof

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Living in the suburbs offers some connections with nature. Manicured lawns, trees, and geese on the roof?

This was the sight I saw a few days ago while driving away from my house: two Canadian geese sitting on my roof. It is not a surprise to see geese in the area. They fly overhead. They walk in the field in the park around the corner. They sit on the pond behind us and walk up into our yard. They occasionally try to cross local roads and tie up traffic.

But I have never seen geese on top of a house. Why would they want to go up there? There hopefully is a not good food up there. If they need a better view, they can fly. Is it safer from predators? Is it somewhere different?

I do not usually look up at my roofline while in front my house. Maybe I should. Perhaps there is more wildlife up there. How about the coyotes that have moved into suburban spaces? The hawk that sometimes sits in the big tree in our backyard? The many squirrels running? Or maybe the one-time appearance of the geese will keep others away.