Comments on: Habitat For Humanity – Why Are You Still Building Houses?

By: Dave Ramsey Post Rebuttal and LinkStuff for June 29 « Daily News

Dave Ramsey Post Rebuttal and LinkStuff for June 29 « Daily News — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:23:03 +0000

[...] Weakonomics has a question for Habitat for Humanity – Why are you still building houses? [...]

By: Ryan P Smith

Ryan P Smith — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:58:13 +0000

Not all houses are created equally. The people that fortunate enough to be selected as a HFH family are not going to be able to afford the 4 bedroom 3 bath houses that are being foreclosed in the suburbs of DFW. I think many parts of the country are still in need of affordable housing.

Really thought provoking post, Thanks.

By: Wojciech @ Fiscal Fizzle

Wojciech @ Fiscal Fizzle — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:29:43 +0000

@Dave – I don’t think that Habitat is after the “home for every American” idea, but more of the “get people out of poverty” idea. But that’s just my take. I think their new “duplex” model shows that they’re willing to make changes to cut down home costs. Maybe in the future they will build condos – who knows? For now, the cost of land, at least in my next of the woods, remains pretty low.

@Weakonomist – Not to burst your bubble (you’re TOTALLY on the right track here), but Habitat has begun to do exactly what you’re talking about. I just saw a news report not even two weeks ago about how they’re taking foreclosures and turning them into homes for families.

I think the reason they’re still building homes is because they’re already committed to a certain amount of land. For example if they’ve purchased 100 acres and only finished out 50, it would probably be silly to leave the other 50 alone (both for people who need homes and for the homes there).

But as land inventory and mobilization costs go away once communities are finished out, I think we’ll see a shift to alternatives, like foreclosed homes.

It’s already starting!

By: Dave C.

Dave C. — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:32:18 +0000

At the risk of sounding like a complete jerk, I have to say that if somebody can’t afford to buy a home in this market, perhaps they shouldn’t be trying to buy a home – and that extends to HFH giving them a no interest mortgage. I think the idea of a home for every family as the American dream is kind of the problem. It’s not hard to imagine that if the population keeps growing, at some point owning property with low resident density will be a luxury only the rich can afford. Everybody else will be living in high density apartments or Arcologies (SimCity! w00t).
Dave C.´s last blog ..Links for 2009-06-21 [del.icio.us]

By: mapgirl

mapgirl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:31:28 +0000

Actually, many HFH chapters do rehab homes. When I was in college, the founders of the Chesapeake HFH chapter did a rehab is their first project.

Many of the chapters I worked with gutted buildings and redid the interiors vs ground up work. In fact, the only place that did ground up work was Homestead, FL after Hurricane Andrew leveled the area. We worked on an entirely new development, as well as shingle a new roof for an existing home.

Sometimes it’s easier to tear down and rebuild from scratch because you have the plans in hand already and you don’t have to spend money on a structural engineer’s expertise as a consultant.

Perhaps you should ask someone from HFH if they’d like to do an interview and explain why they build new vs used.
mapgirl´s last blog ..Making Progress

By: No Debt Plan

No Debt Plan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:50:23 +0000

Excellent post. Completely agree. There have got to be a glut of gutted homes that would be in the HFH “price range” that could be purchased (perhaps as a donation from the bank for a writeoff?), remodeled, and families put in.