Who Killed the Starter Home?
Podcast Description
Have you seen any starter homes for sale lately? Neither have we.
In this podcast, we speak with experts and try to figure out why this humble first home is going extinct. We’ll be exploring if it is the politicians, wielding zoning laws like a murder weapon who killed the starter home? Or maybe the scaredy-cat planners and designers? Or the developers, armed with cookie-cutter plans and corporate indifference? Is it our convoluted tax policy that subsidies homeownership, but puts every tax penalty in the way of creation of the starter homes.
Spoiler alert: it’s probably a little of everything.
We’ll be peeling back the layers of bureaucracy, bad faith, and bad planning, with stops along the way for affordable housing scandals, ADU success stories, and a passionate plea for building code updates. Join us for a conversation that’s part policy deep-dive, part therapy session for frustrated builders, and entirely a love letter to cities that deserve better.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The show concentrates on topics related to housing policy, urban development, and affordable housing challenges, featuring episodes examining zoning laws, taxation impacts on homeownership, and innovative strategies for unique local housing solutions.
Have you seen any starter homes for sale lately? Neither have we.
In this podcast, we speak with experts and try to figure out why this humble first home is going extinct. We’ll be exploring if it is the politicians, wielding zoning laws like a murder weapon who killed the starter home? Or maybe the scaredy-cat planners and designers? Or the developers, armed with cookie-cutter plans and corporate indifference? Is it our convoluted tax policy that subsidies homeownership, but puts every tax penalty in the way of creation of the starter homes.
Spoiler alert: it’s probably a little of everything.
We’ll be peeling back the layers of bureaucracy, bad faith, and bad planning, with stops along the way for affordable housing scandals, ADU success stories, and a passionate plea for building code updates. Join us for a conversation that’s part policy deep-dive, part therapy session for frustrated builders, and entirely a love letter to cities that deserve better.
Have you ever lived with a stranger, shared a kitchen, and ended up marrying someone down the hall? Sam Hooper did. Sam is a legislative attorney who has worked on housing and property rights at the Texas legislature and at a legal nonprofit. He wrote the model bill, the Co-Living Buildings Act.
In this episode, Sam walks us through why single-room occupancy and shared housing, once common across America, was regulated out of existence. He explains what happened when the bottom rung of the housing ladder disappeared, and how occupancy limits, zoning definitions and building codes stand in the way recreating it today.
We talk about what Washington State got right, and what a modern version of co-living might look like. It wouldn’t be the Soviet communal apartment I grew up in. As Sam puts it: no one should be forced to live on the streets to spare them the indignity of sharing a kitchen.
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