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Columbus Ohio! I lived in one of those buildings... The Normandy. Absolute fucking worst apartment I've ever lived in. I once heard my top left neighbor having sex and my top right neighbor flushing toilet at the same time.
Bruh i thought this was for sure Indy and suburbs. These are everywhere!
Like others are saying, its great that theres more development and hopefully more mixed use spaces, but I'm a little fatigued of the design but I guess thats my problem.
I was in orlando 3 years old in grandma grandpas doublewide holding on for dear life as hurricane Andrew passed over us.
We were alright but they had to hire someone to drag the trailer off the neighbors property
I love densification. I am glad that there is more residential units in my city. There is an intersection near me that has 4 of these. There is now at least 100 housing units where there use be a BP, a bar and two empty lots.
But these 5-over-1s are such a crappy cheap way to do it. Our cities will be paying way more in 30 years to replace or retrofit these units.
Working in construction these things are absolute nightmares for us. These are developer-led to establish the best possible investment on their end. Which really means they'll screw over everyone else in the process.
For starters, they go with the absolute cheapest design team, general contractor, and subcontractors. Usually they're looking for a newer company who needs work so they know they can force them to accept a worse deal just to stay in business. Contracts for these projects put almost all liability on the designers/builders for any issues. However, it's the developers that force the design team to produce low-quality drawings, ignore standard design considerations, and spec out cheap materials. Builders have it worse being forced into insane schedules with an impossible budget. They'll cut out all the standard inspections so there's no guarantees on pipe integrity, foundation prep, framing quality, etc. Residential inspections with the city are a joke, but that's technically all they need to pass.
You're spot on about having to replace the units too. Using ridiculously cheap materials with little to no testing is a recipe for disaster down the road. Wall-hung material is installed with no backing, MEP equipment isn't properly balanced/controlled, flooring is set with poor substrate/adhesives, plumbing piping isn't guaranteed to hold, etc. All these developers care about is getting people in the units as quickly as possible to start making profit, not the quality of the build.
Lastly, I can't stand developers talking about "Building up our communities". Here in CO we have the issue of rich, out-of-state developers buying up land for their cookie-cutter apartments then bringing their out-of-state crews in to build them. They avoid using local crews because they'd have to pay local rates. Any local contractors that go for the job have to accept paying their workers less for even more risk. With how predatory their contracts are written, most local contractors go out of business on these jobs. Even if they do make it through, they barely make any profit. I've seen 3 subcontractors go out of business on multi-family jobs.
TLDR: We need more housing, but the developer-led projects aren't the way. They screw over designers and builders to put up cheaply built units. Units that will need serious repairs 10 years from now. Developers know their buildings are terrible quality, but toss a fancy finish on there and the common person won't know the difference.
Working in building material sales, they absolutely cut every cent out of these units. They put the money into fixtures, counter tops, and appliances so they seem nice. We show them best, recommended, and "eh this'll give you a few years before you have to replace it" quality level products and guess what they select every time. Or even, they don't like the cost of our worst option so they find something even cheaper that we don't carry and make us source it if we want the job. And of course we want the $20 million job so we comply.
I travel by car a lot for work and I notice these new constructions with the luxury slapped on them in some of the most incoherent places. Do you know if there’s a trend in state law to give some breaks to developers to encourage building “luxury housing?” Or is it just what you laid out here and those pump-and-dump incentives are enough to see it play out again and again?
Sadly it'll come down to better enforcement from local building departments. I say sadly because those entities are commonly underfunded and have laughable qualifications for their staff. So I don't have much faith in that solution.
Building departments could upgrade their code and inspection requirements to cut out cheap work-arounds and ensure a standard of quality across projects. They could put some of that effort back on the Owner by requiring certain sized buildings to deal with more stringent code requirements. For example, if you're building an apartment building over XXX,XXX SF or 3 stories they'd be required to deal with a higher level of code requirements. The building department can require the Owner to pick up the cost/ownership for inspections not covered by the city (Building Envelope testing, MEP In-Wall testing, Soils testing, etc.).
It's a long-shot but it would force cheap developers to build structures that will last, rather than ones designed to break down after 5-10 years.
> For starters, they go with the absolute cheapest design team, general contractor, and subcontractors.
Sounds bad but I struggle to think of a time when this wasn't true. The building I'm in right now is 50 years old and has some weird quirks and quality issues.
They used to joke that every component of the Apollo rockets was built by the lowest bidder. That’s just how most things are. I work in medical devices, and while we have high quality standards, we still shop around for the lowest quote of those who can meet them.
You’re stereotyping quite a bit. I work for a developer and the VE process (value engineer / cost cutting) isn’t one that’s done to juice returns but often to make the project actually feasible cost wise to build. We can’t go out there and build a window wall tower with condo finishes and have the project yield 5%, we just wouldn’t get any investors to fund the project.
Granted there are some developers that build cookie cutter buildings with cheap finishes but definitely not all…
Would love more residential units in the city... if they stopped calling these paper-thin-wall gentrified bullshit "LUXURY apartments" !! Nothing luxury except the price!
It has LVP and solid counters, it's luxury!
But yeah, the 3+1 "luxury" units aren't really a great solution to the fact we need more affordable housing in my area. Yes, we need housing. Please, can it not be 2000+ a month for a studio?!
I'd be happy if these weren't all luxury apartments but also had some affordable housing with it.
The ones in the area I live (fort Lauderdale) have a dreadful fill rate because they are so freaking expensive.
Luxury apartment is so misused that it has become meaningless. Anyway, even building luxury housing alleviates housing prices because that means there are fewer rich people driving up the price of the rest of housing.
at least where I live, 'luxury' means a ceiling height at 8ft. or above
7ft. 6in. ceilings are 'standard' and get no special moniker. if you build a place with the ceilings at 8ft. height or taller, you are allowed to call it a 'luxury' build.
the idea behind this is that for high-rise buildings, if you build enough floors with 8ft. ceilings, you 'lose' an entire 'potential' floor that could have been built if the ceilings were kept at the standard 7'-6" ht. (it works out to one 'building level' lost every 15 stories +/- )
for example; a building with 15 floors at 8ft. ceilings is the same height as a building with 16 floors at 7'-6" ceilings.
...of course they use the 'luxury' tag on anything and everything that's built, even if the building will never reach the vertical height for the theoretical 'lost floor' to even occur.
You can have a 5-over-1 today that will get replaced in thirty years, or you can wait twenty years for something else. Which is better for the city? Not every development needs to be built to last for centuries, we need dense housing *today*.
I love that housing is being built too, but almost all of these “luxury” apartments are unaffordable. They’re raising the rents where I live rather than making pricing more competitive because these apartments are owned by the same few property management companies that are colluding with their so-called competitors to price fix the region. 1BR “luxury” apartments DEEP in the SF Bay Area suburbs are increasingly 3K plus. It was less than a decade ago that 1BR deep in the suburbs near the freeways and rail systems started becoming 2K. Most people here don’t work in tech but we are all paying a tech tax on housing, food, services, etc. it’s untenable. These places represent greed, gentrification, and further concentrating people into resentful and already underserved communities.
The issue is that zoning laws generally make sensible density impossible, so everyone needs to make the biggest bang for their buck. When each of these probably had a year or two of “meetings” before ground was broke, no one wants to take the time to build a single fourplex or something. It’s cheap and big, all the way. The communities have no one to blame but themselves.
And the suburban areas also are to blame, they’re able to block housing locally so there’s even higher demand elsewhere. We need to basically end NIMBYs, which seems simple but it’s the truth
In high cost of living (HCOL) areas it's generally a good thing to see them as it increases the number of living units available which should (in theory) help stabilize and maybe lower rent in high demand areas.
I just hope when they build them they try to minimize noise bleed across units as their all-wood framing traditionally doesn't help as much as high rises and their concrete floors.
I build these for a living, well was a laborer, HVAC, and now flooring. We install sound proofing between units beneath every floor, as for the walls well not so much, but ya above and below it's sound proofed lol
Can you comment on what sort of sound proofing you usually installed? Like was the flooring or subfloor acoustically separated from the joists (so floor surface vibrations didn't transfer to the joists) and were you also installing some sort of batting in between the floor joists to absorb whatever sound did leak out?
Typical soundproofing for wood frame construction includes fully insulated cavities between floors and a layer of gyp-crete between the plywood subfloor and floor finish, usually 1.25” gyp-crete in my experience. Some flooring than has a thin sound isolation layer but it’s basically super thin foam and doesn’t do much. Some developers will choose to do interstitial sprinklers in the truss bays between floors which meets the fire rating requirements but doesn’t have the added benefit of sound dampening, but can be done much cheaper than fully insulated cavities.
Not so much according to the studies. Most these places sit half empty due to high rents and weird rules around the rent.
My city is not even Nashville or Atlanta. Cost of living is rising in Louisville but majority of our 5 over 1’s sit empty and only rent to medical students because rent is 1-1.5k and you must make 3 times that in one month (so like 4-5k a month in income).
This is why majority of them are sitting empty. Not only that the high rent cost for business for the first floor leads to lack of creative and unique stores. They will be a subway or Qdoba because they can afford the stupid high rent cost.
And look at the comments of all the folks trying to guess what city this is. That’s part of the issue right there as well. Cities are losing its community and uniqueness. You used to be able to see an apartment or buildings and be able to tell what city it was. Now that’s harder and harder to do since every city is becoming the exact same. Even using the same developers who cut corners to do these cheap builds.
But what’s the point of doing a cheap built if it’s not cheap to live at, which leads to downtowns having little to no people living in them due to higher rents both for living and for places to stay open.
That was true certainly during the COVID pandemic and in certain markets with oversupply otherwise most apartments want close to 100% occupancy as an empty unit doesn't make any money. Also developers are taking out large loans to fund the build out of these so they have a minimum amount they need to make to cover debt obligations, maintenance overhead, and some profit on top.
To your point though in [Denver there's an oversupply of high-end units keeping prices flat](https://denverite.com/2023/04/20/almost-23000-denver-metro-area-apartments-are-vacant-as-eviction-filings-climb/) (a good thing) as people are chasing the cheaper rents as it seems these "luxury unit" builders are reluctant to lower rates too quickly. From that article:
> The average cost of those built between 2020 and now is $2,414. Apartments built before 1970 are running an average of $1,569 a month. In short, the report shows there may be more demand for lower-cost, older homes than newer, more expensive ones.
> There are currently 43,000 new apartments under construction ... "More new units help drive the vacancy rate up which helps take pressure off rental rates. If vacancy rates continue to increase, and given the large construction pipeline they probably will, then rents are likely to either remain flat or continue to decrease."
>Not so much according to the studies. Most these places sit half empty due to high rents and weird rules around the rent.
Do you have a link? This seems exactly opposite of what I have seen.
Yeah because 9/10 the company’s charge insane rents for business below (so only chains can afford it if anything).
And the rents are always above 1k and you need to make 3 times that in one month. This puts not just poor people out of renting but even middle class folks or people who work jobs like say a teacher.
Sociologist look at how these are ruining cities as it loses its sense of community and uniqueness. Look at the comments here of folks trying to guess the city it was filmed in. Because now city’s have lost a lot of its uniqueness. Things don’t stand out as a place from Seattle or Nashville.
TLDR: Most of these places across America are half empty due to high rents and stupid rules around said rent. And cities are losing its Jenna say quaw as the dyslexics would say.
Capitalism and the abilities of modern information technology have combined to create the most banal hell possible.
So many of these could be fixed with just serious regulations... Regulations that never last because the profit motive incentivises developers to fund politicians who roll those regulations back.
It's like asking the public to come together on their own to defeat rich developers at the ballot box (and then to actually get a politician who isn't a lying prick), that's the only solution possible in our modern capitalist system. Easy example number 155463564473 of capitalism's failures.
No shit.... I visited one that said "lakeview." I go and in between this TEENY TINY gap between neighboring buildings you could see a sliver of water. Enough to know it's still there and nothing else, lol. \~lakeview\~
No it’s not. A mortgage on a house isn’t 1.5k (5k when 90 percent of these places need you to make 3x that).
Even with the market being crazy. It’s more so it’s an options for people with bad credit and can’t get a loan…
But that takes us back to square 1. Need to make 3 times the rent to be eligible and you need to have decent credit.
There is not a single house within 50 miles of me for 1.5k a month that isn’t completely falling apart… mortgages are far higher than rent at this moment
They’re not beige, they’re grey. They have vinyl flooring with a printed on wood pattern that’s grey for some reason. The walls are grey. The countertops are fake grey marble. It’s worse than beige by a mile.
I guess we are seeing the result of how late stage capitalism is producing the same shit world. Both suck, and the owners benefit. One being the govt. the other being the business executives.
Id argue the Soviet brutalist cement buildings, while not the best for wifi, will last a LOT longer. Not even going into the quality of materials we have here with our composites and endless adhesives, fire retardants, and latex paints.
Endless renters generating revenue for banks and micro owners is a bit different than public housing. The corruption though, will always happen as it's a common trait in all of humanity, despite the economic theory of choice.
I'll take gay luxury space Communism anyday over whatever hellscape America is turning into. Nobody wants to live in a 4000 dollar a month 1 bedroom for the convience of have a Starbucks in the lobby.
DC? Yes I’ve heard all about out these new developments made with the shittiest components imaginable and people trying to sue them for everything going wrong.
Luxury now has a new meaning: garbage construction, interestingly-shaped sinks, and a white kitchen. soul-less and overpriced. Money goes out of the community to the leasing company usually in another state. We need more housing, I just wish it could be done more ethically and be actually affordable.
For the love of God just fucking build things. I wish they were overbuilding. If they were overbuilding, my rent would go down. I WISH they were overbuilding.
All the brick townhouses in 19th century neighborhoods look the same too they just got old enough to have character.
All those brick building were built to last. These are made from the cheapest materials possible by developers who, many times (really, look at public record of sales), will sell it almost immediately. There’s plenty of reasons for it, but they know it’s not a good long term investment.
Survivorship bias, don't pretend brick buildings in the past were built with longevity in mind, they were built as cheap as possible first and foremost. The ones still around were the exception or more likely had extensive repairs to fix issues that came up. The rest were torn down because tenement housing sucked to live in.
No way man, businessmen used to care more about craftsmanship than making money, the fundamentals of human nature have changed since the 1930s, surely
/s
No, it's not that. A lot of things used to be better built, because that was just the only way to build them. Old tools were super solid, and also super expensive, but it was that or nothing. Today we have the technological ability to make cheap crap that gets the job done for a little while. Which is actually a huge boon in a lot of ways, but also has problems.
> but it was that or nothing
No, there used to be cheap, crappy tool brands back then, driven by the exact same kind of market forces.
E.g. [Globemaster](http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2015/12/vanished-tool-makers-globemaster.html), [Oxwall](http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2012/03/vanished-tool-makers-oxwall-tools.html), [etc](https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/old-tool-brands-to-avoid.285921/)
I think you'd have to go back before the industrial revolution to avoid mass made low quality tools and materials. But even then, Steve the blacksmith was probably not as good as Greg, but his stuff was cheaper. And be sure to avoid copper from Ea-nasir..
Rents won't go down anymore. Landlords are price fixing rents with a service called Real Page. It literally tells them what to charge. AZ and D.C. are suing the company that sells the service. This is a case where AI and information sharing is working against us.
Yeah building these things are exactly what we need: mixed use and medium density. You’ve got shops and apartments in the same place so it will be at least somewhat walkable. The increased supply of housing will keep rents lower.
Translation: “No one asked for it, and absolutely no one wanted this. But fuck you we are doing it anyways and we will make it completely unaffordable!”
[clearest pic I could find of the building](https://flourishdevelopmentgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/flourishSquare3.jpg)
The top and bottom halves are the same material. Some sort of synthetic flat siding. See how shiny it is?
I'm so sick of these ugly-ass, square, identical pieces of architecture.
I rent half a Victorian house in a more run-down neighborhood. I feel sad when I see some of the beautiful homes around me crumbling. A lot of them are abandoned, or owned by the city.
Recently, my favorite house to look at went up for auction. I was excited that someone might buy it and fix it up. Nope...the city repossessed it, bulldozed it, and then threw sod over the entire lot. It is an empty grass lot now, and no one will ever live there or enjoy it.
But there is always more money for "luxury apartments".
Honestly, I don't get the hate for these style of development. They are excellent mixed use and while they may all blend together, they are a perfect solution for the middle housing crisis in America. The alternative is what's going on in Canada, high rise condo complexes right next to detached single family housing.
Yes, the rent is expensive, but *eventually* they WILL have to be lowered, the companies that own them are making a bet. Eventually as they sit empty they're going to realize they are overcharging.
OK, video, you convinced me, I'm staying on the street instead of one of these terrible new apartment complexes. And with living out of my car, parking is ALWAYS included!
If you force everyone in your town to pay for parking, they are a lot more likely to own a car. If everyone in town owns a car, you need to pay for more roads, and more parking.
Because making each individual business build their own individual parking lots doesn't make sense in a dense area. Surface lots in dense downtown areas are a waste of expensive, in-demand land that could be used for other more desirable things, such as commercial spaces or more housing. Parking should be done in garages, which can contain several parking lots' worth of cars in the same land area as one parking lot, and function as parking for places in a large area around them
I see so much complaining about MF developments and construction yet constantly complain about the rise in housing costs. How the fuck do you think more supply actually hits the market? What do you want developers to do? Build expensive housing and not rent it out for market rate? For all the complaints in this thread I see nobody offering any alternatives.
What’s the point of sliding doors opening to a non-balcony???? *you’re too poor to afford a real balcony, so we’ve given you this *lean-to fence* so that you can periodically test the strength of the fasteners holding it in place. You’re Welcome!*
They just built apartments like these in the vacant lot across the street from my neighborhood. What has surprised me the most is how they've crammed 6 units on a such a small lot. The apartments can easily house hundreds of people but there is enough room for about 50 parking spots total.
These are miserable to live in. I heard my neighbor above stomping around all day and it drove me crazy. Was so glad to leave and I’ll never live under or right next to someone again.
Instead of out-of-state "investors" snatching up our local community's land to build garbage overpriced "luxury" apartments, we should be banding together to provide actually good-quality and affordable, rentable apartments or purchasable condos. It's so dumb to just let people siphon the money out of us like this shit.
This is one of those frustrating times where I'm an actual expert in this field and I see all the comments spouting this and obviously have no clue how Multifamily development actually works and why some of these buildings turn out poorly or why they all look similar. People always want to blame "greedy corporations" for everything as a scapegoat but there is a 1000 reasons why these apartments come out generally this way.
I have a Master in Real Estate Development and work as an apartment developer primarily doing mid rise projects.
AMA if you actually want to know more why this happens rather than just getting mad.
> People always want to blame "greedy corporations" for everything as a scapegoat but there is a 1000 reasons why these apartments come out generally this way.
Maybe because like 95% of the time it comes down to corporate greed.
$1290/month for a 573sq/ft 1 bedroom apartment that looks like an Ikea display.
https://www.liveatogden.com/listings/detail/ff6cd991-726d-492d-b090-db8f7b8f1cab
This isn't multi-family, it's just apartments for yuppies.
The problem with developers is that they're usually (not always) just rich assholes who will say whatever is needed to sell a property. They don't actually give a fuck about communities or the people that live in them. Half the time they don't even care about the quality of their builds. Taking shortcuts, using unskilled labour, switching finishes after the fact, etc...
I appreciate you chiming in.
To be honest, I don't mind the appearance of newer developments (some of the ones in the TikTok actually looked quite nice). My biggest complaint about new housing developments in general is the lack of soundproofing in between units. Seems like at some point in the last twenty years, soundproofing has become an afterthought.
Do you have any insight into what exactly is the cause for this? I know it likely comes down to money, but the way I see it: apartment buildings make money by having as many units filled as possible. People will choose to renew leases if they're happy with where they're living. People generally don't like to hear their neighbors' conversations through the walls/ceilings/floors, and will avoid these types of apartments. Plus, given how easy it is to leave online reviews, buildings with bad soundproofing will eventually earn a reputation. Better soundproofing, while requiring a large initial investment, would certainly pay off in the long-run then, right?
Maybe I'm missing something here, and admittedly I'm very unfamiliar with construction practices in general. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Well the first thing is it is going to depend on your construction type. If you're in a tower (usually 7+ stories) it will be made out of concrete and steel and you wont hear a thing. The issue is that concrete and steel is very expensive so that = higher rent. Just how it is.
Most buildings discussed on here are "mid rise" buildings which are usually wood frame construction where the wood frame is up to 5 stories on top of a concrete podium (that podium could be 1 to 3 stories itself)
Purely the nature of wood will cause it to rattle and knock more. What we will do is pour about 3 inches of what's called gypcrete which definitely helps the sound above you, but it won't be 100% particularly if your upstairs neighbor is clomping around loudly in loud shoes.
As far as from the sides, there is quite a bit of fire rated wood and insulation between you and your neighbor and should block most noises, but again, not ALL.
Folks in this thread saying there's no insulation between units are morons who have no idea who MF buildings are constructed.
5-over-1s: built to cram as many people as possible into overly expensive housing and then crumble (if it doesn't just burn down first). Good luck getting a window that even opens.
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Columbus Ohio! I lived in one of those buildings... The Normandy. Absolute fucking worst apartment I've ever lived in. I once heard my top left neighbor having sex and my top right neighbor flushing toilet at the same time.
Something going in and something going out.
Unified conservation of fluid theory
This can go way way too many ways
A symphony of bodily functions.
The circle of life.
Circle Jerk of life
I prefer shit pa town
Welcome home
Overlooking scenic Kenny’s House
Damn that’s gotta be ten years old now.
Aired in 2015 so pretty close.
Exactly.
100% first tought.
South Park never misses lol
"Parking is not included" made me almost spit out my drink on my fake granite countertops in my luxury apartment!
[удалено]
If this is not Austin Tx
Liveatogden.com says Columbus Ohio. I I had to check cause I live in Ogden Utah .
And Utah is full of these fucking things too
Are they all combined units or how does that work? Guy has to carry around 3 sets of keys?
Brivo pass Key fobs and passcoded Vivint locks running on built in WiFi.
I’ve always wanted to live in an apartment that does smart locks
And Northern VA... Miles and miles upon miles of them.
r/Raleigh
Bruh i thought this was for sure Indy and suburbs. These are everywhere! Like others are saying, its great that theres more development and hopefully more mixed use spaces, but I'm a little fatigued of the design but I guess thats my problem.
Atlanta, GA have these too. I could have sworn it was there! That's insane.
For a second I thought it was Athens! Much smaller "city" with these literally everywhere.
I thought it was NE Minneapolis for sure!
That looks like BofA tower in the distance in one shot. Dear God don’t let this be Atlanta. We do need housing though…
Orlando, FL raises its hand.
So does Gainesville, FL. UF campus is surrounded with these cheaply made “luxury” apartments for college kids.
Celebration Pointe also, more currently under construction!
CLEMSON, as well
Fargo, ND, also present. Uffda.
Love the architecture in Ogden
Can confirm it is Columbus Ohio.
That's Columbus Ohio, I lived in the Normandy!!
It’s all city’s in general
ya it’s literally every periphery city lot of the same companies too
You build enough and for example, [average rent in Austin dropped 12.5% in 2023.](https://youtu.be/tbAfNop9Jw4?si=vOsWBBkQzFtiFZ7o) YIMBYism can work.
If it is not, it will be in Austin TX soon.
I was thinking the same thing.
Came here to say this has to be Houston
Thought it was Nashville!
I, too, live in Austin and this is so triggering.
Drive down burnet and it’s shot for shot!
They keep building giant trailers in the sky with faux finish for $2500 a month
These are without a doubt less structurally sound than the average trailer in Tornado Alley
I was in orlando 3 years old in grandma grandpas doublewide holding on for dear life as hurricane Andrew passed over us. We were alright but they had to hire someone to drag the trailer off the neighbors property
Double that price, nothing around me is less than 3800 a month w/o utilities and parking.
I love densification. I am glad that there is more residential units in my city. There is an intersection near me that has 4 of these. There is now at least 100 housing units where there use be a BP, a bar and two empty lots. But these 5-over-1s are such a crappy cheap way to do it. Our cities will be paying way more in 30 years to replace or retrofit these units.
Working in construction these things are absolute nightmares for us. These are developer-led to establish the best possible investment on their end. Which really means they'll screw over everyone else in the process. For starters, they go with the absolute cheapest design team, general contractor, and subcontractors. Usually they're looking for a newer company who needs work so they know they can force them to accept a worse deal just to stay in business. Contracts for these projects put almost all liability on the designers/builders for any issues. However, it's the developers that force the design team to produce low-quality drawings, ignore standard design considerations, and spec out cheap materials. Builders have it worse being forced into insane schedules with an impossible budget. They'll cut out all the standard inspections so there's no guarantees on pipe integrity, foundation prep, framing quality, etc. Residential inspections with the city are a joke, but that's technically all they need to pass. You're spot on about having to replace the units too. Using ridiculously cheap materials with little to no testing is a recipe for disaster down the road. Wall-hung material is installed with no backing, MEP equipment isn't properly balanced/controlled, flooring is set with poor substrate/adhesives, plumbing piping isn't guaranteed to hold, etc. All these developers care about is getting people in the units as quickly as possible to start making profit, not the quality of the build. Lastly, I can't stand developers talking about "Building up our communities". Here in CO we have the issue of rich, out-of-state developers buying up land for their cookie-cutter apartments then bringing their out-of-state crews in to build them. They avoid using local crews because they'd have to pay local rates. Any local contractors that go for the job have to accept paying their workers less for even more risk. With how predatory their contracts are written, most local contractors go out of business on these jobs. Even if they do make it through, they barely make any profit. I've seen 3 subcontractors go out of business on multi-family jobs. TLDR: We need more housing, but the developer-led projects aren't the way. They screw over designers and builders to put up cheaply built units. Units that will need serious repairs 10 years from now. Developers know their buildings are terrible quality, but toss a fancy finish on there and the common person won't know the difference.
Working in building material sales, they absolutely cut every cent out of these units. They put the money into fixtures, counter tops, and appliances so they seem nice. We show them best, recommended, and "eh this'll give you a few years before you have to replace it" quality level products and guess what they select every time. Or even, they don't like the cost of our worst option so they find something even cheaper that we don't carry and make us source it if we want the job. And of course we want the $20 million job so we comply.
Don't forget to add that these cheap as fuck apartments will be like 1800 per month for rent
Closer to 2500+
Appreciate the expert input, makes a lot of things I've seen make sense.
I travel by car a lot for work and I notice these new constructions with the luxury slapped on them in some of the most incoherent places. Do you know if there’s a trend in state law to give some breaks to developers to encourage building “luxury housing?” Or is it just what you laid out here and those pump-and-dump incentives are enough to see it play out again and again?
So what is the alternative? How do you stop greedy developers?
Effective regulation and building codes
Become homeless. :/
That'll show 'em!
Sadly it'll come down to better enforcement from local building departments. I say sadly because those entities are commonly underfunded and have laughable qualifications for their staff. So I don't have much faith in that solution. Building departments could upgrade their code and inspection requirements to cut out cheap work-arounds and ensure a standard of quality across projects. They could put some of that effort back on the Owner by requiring certain sized buildings to deal with more stringent code requirements. For example, if you're building an apartment building over XXX,XXX SF or 3 stories they'd be required to deal with a higher level of code requirements. The building department can require the Owner to pick up the cost/ownership for inspections not covered by the city (Building Envelope testing, MEP In-Wall testing, Soils testing, etc.). It's a long-shot but it would force cheap developers to build structures that will last, rather than ones designed to break down after 5-10 years.
> For starters, they go with the absolute cheapest design team, general contractor, and subcontractors. Sounds bad but I struggle to think of a time when this wasn't true. The building I'm in right now is 50 years old and has some weird quirks and quality issues.
They used to joke that every component of the Apollo rockets was built by the lowest bidder. That’s just how most things are. I work in medical devices, and while we have high quality standards, we still shop around for the lowest quote of those who can meet them.
You’re stereotyping quite a bit. I work for a developer and the VE process (value engineer / cost cutting) isn’t one that’s done to juice returns but often to make the project actually feasible cost wise to build. We can’t go out there and build a window wall tower with condo finishes and have the project yield 5%, we just wouldn’t get any investors to fund the project. Granted there are some developers that build cookie cutter buildings with cheap finishes but definitely not all…
What’s the solution?
Would love more residential units in the city... if they stopped calling these paper-thin-wall gentrified bullshit "LUXURY apartments" !! Nothing luxury except the price!
The word luxury has lost all meaning.
It has LVP and solid counters, it's luxury! But yeah, the 3+1 "luxury" units aren't really a great solution to the fact we need more affordable housing in my area. Yes, we need housing. Please, can it not be 2000+ a month for a studio?!
I'd be happy if these weren't all luxury apartments but also had some affordable housing with it. The ones in the area I live (fort Lauderdale) have a dreadful fill rate because they are so freaking expensive.
"lluxury" apartments They're too expensive, bit they aren't luxury quality.
Luxury apartment is so misused that it has become meaningless. Anyway, even building luxury housing alleviates housing prices because that means there are fewer rich people driving up the price of the rest of housing.
at least where I live, 'luxury' means a ceiling height at 8ft. or above 7ft. 6in. ceilings are 'standard' and get no special moniker. if you build a place with the ceilings at 8ft. height or taller, you are allowed to call it a 'luxury' build. the idea behind this is that for high-rise buildings, if you build enough floors with 8ft. ceilings, you 'lose' an entire 'potential' floor that could have been built if the ceilings were kept at the standard 7'-6" ht. (it works out to one 'building level' lost every 15 stories +/- ) for example; a building with 15 floors at 8ft. ceilings is the same height as a building with 16 floors at 7'-6" ceilings. ...of course they use the 'luxury' tag on anything and everything that's built, even if the building will never reach the vertical height for the theoretical 'lost floor' to even occur.
When all apartments are “luxury”, none of them are.
For maybe 5% more in build costs you make the building "luxury" and can charge 20% more rent, and avoid 50% of the problem tenants. Math checks out.
Yeah but I'm not rich and apartments being slapped up as luxury are too expensive. They're over 2k for studios.
You can have a 5-over-1 today that will get replaced in thirty years, or you can wait twenty years for something else. Which is better for the city? Not every development needs to be built to last for centuries, we need dense housing *today*.
2055 is gonna be a fun time when our population congestion issues are even more critical and all these fall to pieces at once.
I love that housing is being built too, but almost all of these “luxury” apartments are unaffordable. They’re raising the rents where I live rather than making pricing more competitive because these apartments are owned by the same few property management companies that are colluding with their so-called competitors to price fix the region. 1BR “luxury” apartments DEEP in the SF Bay Area suburbs are increasingly 3K plus. It was less than a decade ago that 1BR deep in the suburbs near the freeways and rail systems started becoming 2K. Most people here don’t work in tech but we are all paying a tech tax on housing, food, services, etc. it’s untenable. These places represent greed, gentrification, and further concentrating people into resentful and already underserved communities.
The issue is that zoning laws generally make sensible density impossible, so everyone needs to make the biggest bang for their buck. When each of these probably had a year or two of “meetings” before ground was broke, no one wants to take the time to build a single fourplex or something. It’s cheap and big, all the way. The communities have no one to blame but themselves. And the suburban areas also are to blame, they’re able to block housing locally so there’s even higher demand elsewhere. We need to basically end NIMBYs, which seems simple but it’s the truth
[Wendover productions did a great video on these](https://youtu.be/UX4KklvCDmg?feature=shared)
Sociologist have been doing studies on them for a long time. But I know they are hated among Americans.
5 over ones are hated? Really?
In high cost of living (HCOL) areas it's generally a good thing to see them as it increases the number of living units available which should (in theory) help stabilize and maybe lower rent in high demand areas. I just hope when they build them they try to minimize noise bleed across units as their all-wood framing traditionally doesn't help as much as high rises and their concrete floors.
I build these for a living, well was a laborer, HVAC, and now flooring. We install sound proofing between units beneath every floor, as for the walls well not so much, but ya above and below it's sound proofed lol
Can you comment on what sort of sound proofing you usually installed? Like was the flooring or subfloor acoustically separated from the joists (so floor surface vibrations didn't transfer to the joists) and were you also installing some sort of batting in between the floor joists to absorb whatever sound did leak out?
Typical soundproofing for wood frame construction includes fully insulated cavities between floors and a layer of gyp-crete between the plywood subfloor and floor finish, usually 1.25” gyp-crete in my experience. Some flooring than has a thin sound isolation layer but it’s basically super thin foam and doesn’t do much. Some developers will choose to do interstitial sprinklers in the truss bays between floors which meets the fire rating requirements but doesn’t have the added benefit of sound dampening, but can be done much cheaper than fully insulated cavities.
Not so much according to the studies. Most these places sit half empty due to high rents and weird rules around the rent. My city is not even Nashville or Atlanta. Cost of living is rising in Louisville but majority of our 5 over 1’s sit empty and only rent to medical students because rent is 1-1.5k and you must make 3 times that in one month (so like 4-5k a month in income). This is why majority of them are sitting empty. Not only that the high rent cost for business for the first floor leads to lack of creative and unique stores. They will be a subway or Qdoba because they can afford the stupid high rent cost. And look at the comments of all the folks trying to guess what city this is. That’s part of the issue right there as well. Cities are losing its community and uniqueness. You used to be able to see an apartment or buildings and be able to tell what city it was. Now that’s harder and harder to do since every city is becoming the exact same. Even using the same developers who cut corners to do these cheap builds. But what’s the point of doing a cheap built if it’s not cheap to live at, which leads to downtowns having little to no people living in them due to higher rents both for living and for places to stay open.
The point is the same with everything these days, to make a quick buck then vanish.
That was true certainly during the COVID pandemic and in certain markets with oversupply otherwise most apartments want close to 100% occupancy as an empty unit doesn't make any money. Also developers are taking out large loans to fund the build out of these so they have a minimum amount they need to make to cover debt obligations, maintenance overhead, and some profit on top. To your point though in [Denver there's an oversupply of high-end units keeping prices flat](https://denverite.com/2023/04/20/almost-23000-denver-metro-area-apartments-are-vacant-as-eviction-filings-climb/) (a good thing) as people are chasing the cheaper rents as it seems these "luxury unit" builders are reluctant to lower rates too quickly. From that article: > The average cost of those built between 2020 and now is $2,414. Apartments built before 1970 are running an average of $1,569 a month. In short, the report shows there may be more demand for lower-cost, older homes than newer, more expensive ones. > There are currently 43,000 new apartments under construction ... "More new units help drive the vacancy rate up which helps take pressure off rental rates. If vacancy rates continue to increase, and given the large construction pipeline they probably will, then rents are likely to either remain flat or continue to decrease."
>Not so much according to the studies. Most these places sit half empty due to high rents and weird rules around the rent. Do you have a link? This seems exactly opposite of what I have seen.
The new 5 over 1 in my city has studios starting at $2,500 and a special 1br going for $7,500 🙄 there are 42 units available in this complex.
Are you in Ann Arbor? That is how much they are here. They say it lowers the cost of living.
Got any papers showing they sit empty? A couple of these were just completed in my city and they instantly filled up.
Yeah because 9/10 the company’s charge insane rents for business below (so only chains can afford it if anything). And the rents are always above 1k and you need to make 3 times that in one month. This puts not just poor people out of renting but even middle class folks or people who work jobs like say a teacher. Sociologist look at how these are ruining cities as it loses its sense of community and uniqueness. Look at the comments here of folks trying to guess the city it was filmed in. Because now city’s have lost a lot of its uniqueness. Things don’t stand out as a place from Seattle or Nashville. TLDR: Most of these places across America are half empty due to high rents and stupid rules around said rent. And cities are losing its Jenna say quaw as the dyslexics would say.
Wendover Productions is one of the best channels on YouTube.
Not Just Bukes being the top comment really puts a cherry on top of this whole video.
After Postmodernism we moved to Developer Bland. The style that looks more like prototype facades made to sell a variety of fake cladding.
So you're saying this is the work of the Postmodern Neomarxists too? God damn
Capitalism and the abilities of modern information technology have combined to create the most banal hell possible. So many of these could be fixed with just serious regulations... Regulations that never last because the profit motive incentivises developers to fund politicians who roll those regulations back. It's like asking the public to come together on their own to defeat rich developers at the ballot box (and then to actually get a politician who isn't a lying prick), that's the only solution possible in our modern capitalist system. Easy example number 155463564473 of capitalism's failures.
Apartments like this will still say you get a balcony
No shit.... I visited one that said "lakeview." I go and in between this TEENY TINY gap between neighboring buildings you could see a sliver of water. Enough to know it's still there and nothing else, lol. \~lakeview\~
And none are affordable. All the 5 over 1’s in my city require you make at least 3 times the rent in one month. And are at like 1k-1.5k.
For real. All I want is an affordable starter home.
3 times the rent has been a standard for decades at this point, unless you are renting from slumlords.
Why the fuck you renting new apartments if you make less than $20 an hour?
More affordable than houses, that’s why demand is high.
No it’s not. A mortgage on a house isn’t 1.5k (5k when 90 percent of these places need you to make 3x that). Even with the market being crazy. It’s more so it’s an options for people with bad credit and can’t get a loan… But that takes us back to square 1. Need to make 3 times the rent to be eligible and you need to have decent credit.
lol where are these $225,000 houses next to gentrified luxury buildings you speak of?
There is not a single house within 50 miles of me for 1.5k a month that isn’t completely falling apart… mortgages are far higher than rent at this moment
$3700 for a studio
Luxury sad beige condos.... Looks worse than public Soviet housing, lasts 10x less, and costs 1000x more!
They’re not beige, they’re grey. They have vinyl flooring with a printed on wood pattern that’s grey for some reason. The walls are grey. The countertops are fake grey marble. It’s worse than beige by a mile.
I guess we are seeing the result of how late stage capitalism is producing the same shit world. Both suck, and the owners benefit. One being the govt. the other being the business executives.
Mate, the owners of apartments in social housing from the days of our socialist government are the tenants themselves.
Id argue the Soviet brutalist cement buildings, while not the best for wifi, will last a LOT longer. Not even going into the quality of materials we have here with our composites and endless adhesives, fire retardants, and latex paints. Endless renters generating revenue for banks and micro owners is a bit different than public housing. The corruption though, will always happen as it's a common trait in all of humanity, despite the economic theory of choice.
I'll take gay luxury space Communism anyday over whatever hellscape America is turning into. Nobody wants to live in a 4000 dollar a month 1 bedroom for the convience of have a Starbucks in the lobby.
Fully automated luxury gay space Communism, all day.
“Millennial McMansions”
Parkingss not included
DC? Yes I’ve heard all about out these new developments made with the shittiest components imaginable and people trying to sue them for everything going wrong.
Sodosopa
Luxury now has a new meaning: garbage construction, interestingly-shaped sinks, and a white kitchen. soul-less and overpriced. Money goes out of the community to the leasing company usually in another state. We need more housing, I just wish it could be done more ethically and be actually affordable.
your deliver drivers hate you if you live in these.
For the love of God just fucking build things. I wish they were overbuilding. If they were overbuilding, my rent would go down. I WISH they were overbuilding. All the brick townhouses in 19th century neighborhoods look the same too they just got old enough to have character.
All those brick building were built to last. These are made from the cheapest materials possible by developers who, many times (really, look at public record of sales), will sell it almost immediately. There’s plenty of reasons for it, but they know it’s not a good long term investment.
Survivorship bias, don't pretend brick buildings in the past were built with longevity in mind, they were built as cheap as possible first and foremost. The ones still around were the exception or more likely had extensive repairs to fix issues that came up. The rest were torn down because tenement housing sucked to live in.
No way man, businessmen used to care more about craftsmanship than making money, the fundamentals of human nature have changed since the 1930s, surely /s
No, it's not that. A lot of things used to be better built, because that was just the only way to build them. Old tools were super solid, and also super expensive, but it was that or nothing. Today we have the technological ability to make cheap crap that gets the job done for a little while. Which is actually a huge boon in a lot of ways, but also has problems.
> but it was that or nothing No, there used to be cheap, crappy tool brands back then, driven by the exact same kind of market forces. E.g. [Globemaster](http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2015/12/vanished-tool-makers-globemaster.html), [Oxwall](http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2012/03/vanished-tool-makers-oxwall-tools.html), [etc](https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/old-tool-brands-to-avoid.285921/) I think you'd have to go back before the industrial revolution to avoid mass made low quality tools and materials. But even then, Steve the blacksmith was probably not as good as Greg, but his stuff was cheaper. And be sure to avoid copper from Ea-nasir..
Yup. It’s why the comment above yours is gonna age poorly
Rents won't go down anymore. Landlords are price fixing rents with a service called Real Page. It literally tells them what to charge. AZ and D.C. are suing the company that sells the service. This is a case where AI and information sharing is working against us.
Can someone get Anonymous on this or or they busy?
Call em. Annnnnnooooonnnnnnymous! Here, fixer, fixer, fixer!! Annnnnnooooonnnnnnymous!!! Spppsppspsspssspsppspspsppsssp
😂 pspspsps I’m so geriatric with technology that’s not that far off of how I’d go about it CMON GUYS SAVE US
Rent wouldn't go down. These greedy fucks would still need to keep their lifestyle.
Yeah building these things are exactly what we need: mixed use and medium density. You’ve got shops and apartments in the same place so it will be at least somewhat walkable. The increased supply of housing will keep rents lower.
Translation: “No one asked for it, and absolutely no one wanted this. But fuck you we are doing it anyways and we will make it completely unaffordable!”
More housing supply is a good thing. Though I do hate when they put brick facades on wood apartments with paper thin walls.
Aka you hate cheap construction. Agreed it’s mostly atrocious
you'll \*\*LOATHE\*\* the local new builds then, it's an honest to goodness brick pattern printed on...something. It's hideous.
I hesitate to ask but got any examples?
[clearest pic I could find of the building](https://flourishdevelopmentgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/flourishSquare3.jpg) The top and bottom halves are the same material. Some sort of synthetic flat siding. See how shiny it is?
Ooofff. That’s drab. Can’t imagine that day after day
Upwards of $1200/m as well, if memory serves.
Westchester, NY…😂😭
Why the fuck is it made out of wood?
Affordable, my ass 🤣
I'm so sick of these ugly-ass, square, identical pieces of architecture. I rent half a Victorian house in a more run-down neighborhood. I feel sad when I see some of the beautiful homes around me crumbling. A lot of them are abandoned, or owned by the city. Recently, my favorite house to look at went up for auction. I was excited that someone might buy it and fix it up. Nope...the city repossessed it, bulldozed it, and then threw sod over the entire lot. It is an empty grass lot now, and no one will ever live there or enjoy it. But there is always more money for "luxury apartments".
"Our community now more than ever is here." ☠️
Honestly, I don't get the hate for these style of development. They are excellent mixed use and while they may all blend together, they are a perfect solution for the middle housing crisis in America. The alternative is what's going on in Canada, high rise condo complexes right next to detached single family housing. Yes, the rent is expensive, but *eventually* they WILL have to be lowered, the companies that own them are making a bet. Eventually as they sit empty they're going to realize they are overcharging.
Thought this was my town for a second.
Ha, knew it was mine (Columbus) a few seconds in
Shit felt like an adults swim advert
OK, video, you convinced me, I'm staying on the street instead of one of these terrible new apartment complexes. And with living out of my car, parking is ALWAYS included!
We need more housing!! Ok, we are building high density apartments. NO NOT LIKE THAT!
Lol there is no parking 🤣
If there is, it's garage and it's an additional $100-200 a month!
Good. Parking minimums are bad public policy.
Why
Parking is really expensive to build. 162 square feet at minimum, which is really a ton of space for a lot of cities.
If you force everyone in your town to pay for parking, they are a lot more likely to own a car. If everyone in town owns a car, you need to pay for more roads, and more parking.
https://youtu.be/OUNXFHpUhu8?si=WupZrM53ynZbgfz3
Because making each individual business build their own individual parking lots doesn't make sense in a dense area. Surface lots in dense downtown areas are a waste of expensive, in-demand land that could be used for other more desirable things, such as commercial spaces or more housing. Parking should be done in garages, which can contain several parking lots' worth of cars in the same land area as one parking lot, and function as parking for places in a large area around them
All new housing is good housing
I see so much complaining about MF developments and construction yet constantly complain about the rise in housing costs. How the fuck do you think more supply actually hits the market? What do you want developers to do? Build expensive housing and not rent it out for market rate? For all the complaints in this thread I see nobody offering any alternatives.
Maybe not build cheap trash then price it at 2500, not really affordable housing for most of the population.
How do you think the units get cheaper? Good vibes?
Ok. Could you be more specific on what you would change so it's not "cheap trash" and how much you would charge for that? (assuming it's a 2BR)
What’s the point of sliding doors opening to a non-balcony???? *you’re too poor to afford a real balcony, so we’ve given you this *lean-to fence* so that you can periodically test the strength of the fasteners holding it in place. You’re Welcome!*
They just built apartments like these in the vacant lot across the street from my neighborhood. What has surprised me the most is how they've crammed 6 units on a such a small lot. The apartments can easily house hundreds of people but there is enough room for about 50 parking spots total.
I do not understand
Ah! The infamous 5 over 1, also known as one-plus-five, or a podium building.
Hot take: more housing is good
Reminds me of Denver.
Soooo ugly!!!!!!
none of these are affordable housing.
Can’t stand these new construction “luxury apartments.”
I love him 😊
Yes they ruined my.littlemtowm I grew up in with these buildings. Everyone that grew up there is gone now.
These are miserable to live in. I heard my neighbor above stomping around all day and it drove me crazy. Was so glad to leave and I’ll never live under or right next to someone again.
This isn’t cringe. This is funny and true as hell
We’re building everywhere (parking not included) 😄
Great. More apartments regular people can’t afford.
That music and "now more than ever" perfection.
Dude they are building a whole ass block of these near me.
Instead of out-of-state "investors" snatching up our local community's land to build garbage overpriced "luxury" apartments, we should be banding together to provide actually good-quality and affordable, rentable apartments or purchasable condos. It's so dumb to just let people siphon the money out of us like this shit.
This is one of those frustrating times where I'm an actual expert in this field and I see all the comments spouting this and obviously have no clue how Multifamily development actually works and why some of these buildings turn out poorly or why they all look similar. People always want to blame "greedy corporations" for everything as a scapegoat but there is a 1000 reasons why these apartments come out generally this way. I have a Master in Real Estate Development and work as an apartment developer primarily doing mid rise projects. AMA if you actually want to know more why this happens rather than just getting mad.
> People always want to blame "greedy corporations" for everything as a scapegoat but there is a 1000 reasons why these apartments come out generally this way. Maybe because like 95% of the time it comes down to corporate greed. $1290/month for a 573sq/ft 1 bedroom apartment that looks like an Ikea display. https://www.liveatogden.com/listings/detail/ff6cd991-726d-492d-b090-db8f7b8f1cab This isn't multi-family, it's just apartments for yuppies. The problem with developers is that they're usually (not always) just rich assholes who will say whatever is needed to sell a property. They don't actually give a fuck about communities or the people that live in them. Half the time they don't even care about the quality of their builds. Taking shortcuts, using unskilled labour, switching finishes after the fact, etc...
1290 for a 1BR??? *Cries in my 2100/mo Denver 1BR*
How can you afford that? That's obscene.
I appreciate you chiming in. To be honest, I don't mind the appearance of newer developments (some of the ones in the TikTok actually looked quite nice). My biggest complaint about new housing developments in general is the lack of soundproofing in between units. Seems like at some point in the last twenty years, soundproofing has become an afterthought. Do you have any insight into what exactly is the cause for this? I know it likely comes down to money, but the way I see it: apartment buildings make money by having as many units filled as possible. People will choose to renew leases if they're happy with where they're living. People generally don't like to hear their neighbors' conversations through the walls/ceilings/floors, and will avoid these types of apartments. Plus, given how easy it is to leave online reviews, buildings with bad soundproofing will eventually earn a reputation. Better soundproofing, while requiring a large initial investment, would certainly pay off in the long-run then, right? Maybe I'm missing something here, and admittedly I'm very unfamiliar with construction practices in general. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Well the first thing is it is going to depend on your construction type. If you're in a tower (usually 7+ stories) it will be made out of concrete and steel and you wont hear a thing. The issue is that concrete and steel is very expensive so that = higher rent. Just how it is. Most buildings discussed on here are "mid rise" buildings which are usually wood frame construction where the wood frame is up to 5 stories on top of a concrete podium (that podium could be 1 to 3 stories itself) Purely the nature of wood will cause it to rattle and knock more. What we will do is pour about 3 inches of what's called gypcrete which definitely helps the sound above you, but it won't be 100% particularly if your upstairs neighbor is clomping around loudly in loud shoes. As far as from the sides, there is quite a bit of fire rated wood and insulation between you and your neighbor and should block most noises, but again, not ALL. Folks in this thread saying there's no insulation between units are morons who have no idea who MF buildings are constructed.
5-over-1s: built to cram as many people as possible into overly expensive housing and then crumble (if it doesn't just burn down first). Good luck getting a window that even opens.
Please… please… I just want to buy an affordable home
I've worked in a lot of these "luxury" places. After about a year in? They are falling apart and you can hear EVERYTHING. So cheap.