Opinion: How to Rebuild the ‘Starter Home’ Market

In the first of a series about smaller homes and housing affordability in Greater Greater Washington, Payton Chung outlines how lifting restrictions on “missing middle housing” and reducing minimum lot sizes can rapidly bring down home prices that are kept artificially high by large lot size requirements. “By requiring a certain amount of land under each house, zoning could ensure that only large, expensive houses would get built.” Reducing or eliminating minimum lot sizes and single-family requirements could “re-create the starter house market,” Chung says.

According to Chung, “Allowing smaller new houses quickly addresses middle-income households’ needs by allowing them to forego things like large yards, garages, or extra bedrooms that many neither need nor want. Smaller houses are also a better fit for America’s shrinking households.” Middle housing such as duplexes and triplexes can cost less for builders and thus less for buyers. “Those lower costs come from both dividing land and materials between multiple units, and building smaller units that use fewer materials.”

Chung points out that the cost of new homes can’t be compared to the cost of older homes that, in many cases, need substantial repairs. But building smaller, “starter” homes can put homeownership within reach for more American households. “Despite a much larger population, the absolute number of small detached houses built in America has fallen by almost 90% over the last 40 years.”