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Tim Small's avatar

Interesting overview, and here’s a historical tidbit to further bolster your point: the old Sears Roebuck home kits came in a limited number of styles/layouts but were quite popular in the early years of the last century. My tiny Midwestern hometown had several. Apparently they were delivered by rail. (Not sure how inclined you’d be to dig deeper into the history there, but they clearly filled a niche.) Decades later those I saw seemed to be generally holding up well and had been modified extensively.

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SB's avatar

I think the idea is true to a very limited degree: yes, people prefer unique and distinctive houses but aren't willing to pay for them a significant premium. If cookie cutter mass production would bring a large productivity boost, that style would be dominant across all market segments except luxury/high end - because it would trickle down as cheap housing.

The fact that we don't see this dominance and that cookie cutters don't sell at a lower price than a comparable one off house suggests that the productivity gains of repetition are very limited. Or, in other words, that current production methods cannot exploit repetitive patterns to lower costs, unlike say the electronics or auto industries.

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