Ever wonder why it's nearly impossible to find a brand-new, modest starter home? In this episode of Classonomics, Sabrina Maddeaux and Mike Moffatt break down the real-world housing economics driving the extinction of small detached homes across Canada and why developers are practically forced to build McMansions instead.

From flat municipal fees to setback regulations and astronomical land costs, we run through the numbers we explain why smaller homes no longer make financial sense for builders, and what policy changes could actually fix it.

• The disappearance of homes under 1,500 square feet
• Serviced land pricing and lot width economics
• How flat municipal development fees penalize small builds
• Setback rules and wasted building space
• Construction economies of scale
• Fixed overhead and pre-construction costs
• Policy solutions to bring back missing middle housing

Chapters:

00:00 Small Detached Homes Are Disappearing

02:02 Why Developers Don’t Build Smaller Homes

03:01 The Real Cost of Building a Small Home

05:27 Why Land Costs Favour Bigger Houses

07:43 How Lot Rules Make Small Homes Harder to Build

09:33 How to Bring Down the Cost of Land

10:12 Development Charges Favour Bigger Homes

13:39 Why Bigger Homes Have Lower Construction Costs

16:15 The Costs That Don’t Shrink With the House

17:47 Why a $600K Home Costs So Much

Research:

https://pub-ottawa.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=311483

Hosted by Mike Moffatt & Cara Stern & Sabrina Maddeaux

Produced by Meredith Martin

Funded by the Neptis Foundation https://neptis.org/