There is big money in building really low-cost houses. Can't do it the
old 1950's way when a builder could turn almost any raw land into cheap,
usable lots in ninety days, complete with roads, water, sewage and
electrical utilities. My finished lot cost never exceeded
$1800---$50,000 is more common now.
Where and how to do it now? In the bombed-out, tax-foreclosed inner
cities, where there are thousands of already-surveyed, building lots,
with roads, water, sewage and electric utilities already in place. You
would have to get the cooperation of a city government---no big problem,
these lots yield no revenue, soak up a lot of taxes better spent on
other purposes, so the lots would be either free or ridiculously
low-cost to the builder as compared to the lot-cost of building anyplace
else. You might have to hop around a little to satisfy municipal
authorities, but a large number of the foreclosed lots would be
contiguous---a great side-effect being that a builder could set up
onsite jigs, fixtures and other aids to mass-production that efficient
builders employed in the 1950's---and no longer do.
Gets around that secret, nagging conscience too---builders eating up
good agricultural land are the locusts of our time.
Housebuilding is not for everybody---including Keith Bellinger there
were only two on the Homestead List, and a lot of one-time housebuilders
have opted for home improvements to simplify their working lives---like
my next-door neighbor Chris Bedard, a French-Canadian immigrant who is a
licensed general contractor, electrician and plumber up to his ears in
business. He is planning a long trip by road to Alaska in June---a
contractor who built homes would find that hard to do.
I really liked tract-building---got the same emotional lift from it as I
got from growing corn on the farm (another destructive enterprise).