In some parts of Europe, it’s not hard to find studio / one-bedroom apartments of between 250 and 400 square feet (23-37 square meters) – or even smaller – to rent or buy. Students and young couples gravitate toward these because they’re affordable.
In America, though (based on recent online searches in various Western states), they seem quite difficult to come by.
(Instead, the main low-price option in the US seems to be mobile homes, which depreciate over time.)
I would expect a robust demand for small apartments. They allow even working-class folks to reap the benefits of property ownership. And developers who built them could sell more units per building.
Given the well-known crisis in affordable housing in many American cities, how can it be that more small apartments are not being built in the States?
Yes, this seems like more of an issue for buying than for renting. It also seems like more of an issue in mid-sized cities – some tiny studio apartments can be found, for instance, in LA and NY.
Municipal occupation codes often have minimum floor size for apartments (as opposed to rented rooms with shared bath and kitchen facilities) specified of have a minimum floor area larger than than 300 sq ft or more for multiple occupants. In addition, because of the demolition of tenements in major cities most apartments are of newer (post-WWII) construction with full kitchens (even in studios) and larger floor areas than you see in Europe and especially on the Pacific Rim.
Of course, most developers and large apartment owners aren’t interested in providing housing at the lowest possible price point; they want to maximize their profit by renting at the sweet spot of rental price and most occupied units, and there just isn’t a perceived demand for microapartments. A 300-400 sq ft apartment takes up an inordinate amount of interstitial space for occupied area, and is only desirable when population density and appeal drives up the cost of larger spaces, e.g. New York or San Francisco.
I wonder if the pandemic has somewhat dampened the trend toward micro…excuse me, cozy apartments.
It’s one thing to have the prospect of enjoying urban nightlife and other amenities, quite another to face being cooped up in a tiny space during lockdowns.
Just a note on U.S. terminology – here, the word “apartment” is usually used specifically for a dwelling unit in a multi-unit building, which occupants rent. The apartment building (and all of the individual units) is typically owned by either a real estate management company, or an individual landlord, as an investment.
When the same sort of dwelling unit is owned by an individual (or a family), and other units in the same building are owned by other individuals/families, the term “condominium” (“condo” for short) is usually used. IME, most Americans would talk about an “apartment” in terms of a dwelling that they would rent, not one that they would themselves purchase.
As @Stranger_On_A_Train notes, such small apartments or condos are pretty rare outside of a relatively small number of cities which suffer from (comparatively) very high population density – San Francisco is probably one of the only cities in the Western U.S. where this is the case.
Most of the Western U.S. is pretty spread out, and many cities in that region, which are (or were) surrounded by large quantities of undeveloped land, found it easier to expand by spreading out – that’s why urban areas like Los Angeles and Phoenix are so sprawling.
Right next to the bed there’s usually a dresser or a bureau of some kind, and there’s no room for your stuff on it. Somebody else’s shit is on the dresser. Have you noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?!?
Here in Canada (or at least in the west) an apartment you “rent” is a living space in a multi unit building. The same type of living space that you purchase is a condominium.
That’s also true in the American Midwest, and as for mobile homes being a cost-effective way to live, that concept is on its way out as well. Lot rent in my area is not much less expensive than a 1BR apartment.
It’s not allowed. Oh, it might theoretically be legal if you read the zoning code in isolation, but good luck going into a city and telling them you want to build a lot of small apartments. Everyone will find some objection to that. There will be more traffic, it won’t have enough parking, it will block sunshine from a single tree for three minutes on the summer solstice which means it’s not environmentally friendly, you’re building a slum and poor people deserve to live in full-size units (but if you build larger units you’re doing gentrification and that’s wrong too), etc. etc. etc. until you give up and go build a development of tract houses in a wildfire zone instead.
It usually depends on where you live and what housing options are available in your area.
College towns and small towns usually have affordable smaller housing options, even though everyone has their own preference on where they want to live.
I’ve been looking around here lately, and I’ve noticed a few places advertising “Condo-style” apartments for rent.
I don’t know how they would be different from any other rental apartment, that would make them “Condo-style”. Maybe just more expensive countertops and bathrooms, maybe?
I guess it depends upon your location. They are quite common in Seattle. Here is just one company that has micro apartments in Seattle. Of course, many will be surprised at the expensive rents for these tiny apartments.
Our first home was a 20 year old trailer, complete with axles behind the skirting. We paid 25000 for it 25 years ago. It has passed through several owners and recently was sold for 115000. We moved from the trailer to a 10 year old mobile that we bought for 80 grand. Two owners later, it last sold for 180000.
Even if the trailer is a falling down mess, the value of improved “sewer/septic, water and power access” land can’t be denied.
A friend’s daughter, SO and two children were renting a luxury apartment. It was a 600 sf two bedroom, one bath place BUT it came with two pools, a playground, a spa, a gym, a smoothy/coffee bar and other cool things right there. Then the world ended and suddenly they were paying a ton of money to live in a shoebox. Even better was when the SO caught the plague.
They went through the bidding wars to be able to buy their own home with a yard and ended up paying way too much money for a 1100 sq three bedroom, one bath home in a bad neighborhood but at least the yard is fenced and they can throw the kids outside when the weather is nice.
Lot rent is something I have never understood. I know folks who live in mobile home parks and while their park is well maintained and all, they are still responsible for their own postage sized lot and any repairs to their own home. They also have really strict rules about what they can do with their lots and how they can decorate for the holidays. I seriously never saw the attraction, but folks must like that sort of thing because the parks I drive by never have Vacant signs up.
To me, living in a mobile home park sounds about as attractive as living in an apartment, I want elbow room!!!
To the OP, there are small condo’s available in Phoenix. Many of them are luxury condo’s and they look very nice. And small. Only one closet in the bedroom so there wouldn’t be room for hub’s two pair of shoes.
The short answer is that they were never popular in the U.S. In the 1800s, as soon as horse-drawn trollies were introduced, cities like Boston and Philadelphia saw land away from the central city be
developed into housing tracts. The trend only accelerated with more reliable, faster electric trolleys that could venture further out, and then exploded with the automobile and highways. Single-family detached housing is not only the ideal in the U.S., it’s been pretty much the norm for more than a century.
This is actually the right answer. Condos are really only popular in big cities where folks want to live downtown and have arts and entertainment right at their doorstep. I once worked for an art dealer who used to live in a beautiful penthouse apartment in New York City.
She had to live there because that’s where her clients were. As soon as the internet really kicked off, she bought a really nice place in a gated Scottsdale community and waved good buy to New York city life forever.
As was typical for Americans in my day, I was living on my own (kinda, I was in the military from 17 to 21) from the time I graduated high school. I rented because I couldn’t afford to buy. Some folks seemed to like the apartment life, I hated hearing people through the walls or smelling them cooking bacon at any time I wasn’t eating bacon.
I was renting when I met hubs and we moved out of my studio apartment to a rental house as soon as we could. We moved out of the state (California) when we could afford it because we wanted to be able to afford to own our home.
