Just the sewer (the capacity only, no work done) was $11k. Then add on the park and school fees which both were over $10k. No wonder it a builder has to build something over 2000 SQFT to make it pencil out.
Buying property should have the same transparency (into costs and fees) as breakfast cereal with nutritional labels.
I'm with you up until that. Maybe there are places where you have to build over 2000 sf due to regulations. For the most part, this is an industry talking point to justify building expensive houses on the limited land that gets zoned for residential. It gets repeated a lot.
You can build smaller houses but you can't charge as much for them. I'm not faulting the builders for maximizing profits, but it's still a talking point. (And in the grand scheme of things, it's not the reason housing is unaffordable.)
I kind of feel it is the inverse.
If you can build a house for X$/sqft, you have a linear relationship. If it costs 100k _plus_ X$/sqft (for sewer, permits, etc) now you have a floor. You can sell a bigger house for 600k, or a 35% smaller house for 425k, odds are you’ll sell the bigger house quicker. I bet the 325k homes would sell like beanie babies in the 90s in places like sf.
The actual problem, the elephant in the room, is that California is expensive, both by popularity and regulation. This makes for an embarrassing conundrum where California is simultaneously pushing poor people out while trying to subsidize their life via social programs.
I don’t think it’s working.
Condo defect law is far far more onerous than defect law for single family homes, to the point that it doesn't make sense to offer units for sale. There are those working on reform but it's a slow process.
I have see it happen with older friends: they could move to a smaller place that's more appropriate but they'd had to pay a ton more.
The Prop 13 distortion on the market is very extreme. Perhaps even more so than the super low pandemic interest rates compared to today's interest rates.
IMO the North America economic-societal "model" is High cost + More regulation. Everything is legal and proved by some experts, and regulated to the maximum, but in reality they also build moats after moats for existing interest groups (landlords, insurance companies, big contractors, etc.).
And everyone thinks this is the right model for "democracy" and "ruled by law". People may blame for part of the model (e.g. landlords) but never realize that the whole model is built to support this.
This is my observation so definitely biased.