patrick.net

Mailing your ebook now!

Kinda horrified by the prospect of autonomous cars personally.

curious2 says

Who is going to pay SF real estate prices if half the jobs are gone and you can get build the house of your dreams within an hour's autonomous ride?

Anything within an hour drive from SF is not much cheaper and hasn't been cheap for a long time.

Ironman says

After all, if your autonomous car runs over someone in NYC, who's going to be the one getting sued? You (the owner) or the developer of the software and sensors?

The one who clicked "I Agree" button on the startup screen, duh.

curious2 says

How & when will autonomous cars and construction affect housing and land prices?

It will make it easier for people to live further away from work, because the stress of driving is eliminated. That should take the pricing pressure off of city areas. Land values in the boonies should see a higher demand.
This would be a long time in the making.

Ironman says

After all, if your autonomous car runs over someone in NYC, who's going to be the one getting sued? You (the owner) or the developer of the software and sensors?

The owner will get sued. But you can't get a moving violation.

I think a significant factor is being overlooked with this calculus. People want to be near other people, the young especially are energized by contact with others, and the social and entertainment opportunities that are present in proximity to many other people. There's a reason I and my wife each separately made a migration from our respectively rural starting points to the highly populated area of Southern California. Going home to either place seems dreadfully dull these days, and although there are joys of a tamer sort to be had in farmland and the wilds, we don't yearn to return to our roots.

I do think that many will want to move out further and become more isolated in physical space, but others will want to join the city life with equal fervor. Perhaps they will cross paths. I see this change in technology as providing options for people to choose the lives they prefer, not as a mass urban exodus.

rando says

Kinda horrified by the prospect of autonomous cars personally

Don't you know they'll be boring! So 1984 and Big Brotherish in concept and I'm sure they'll have all the style of a golf cart.

A look at the future from 60 years ago:

www.youtube.com/embed/Rx6keHpeYak

1976! He missed by about 40 years--that would have been the worst time for automobiles in the 20th century!

Strategist says

It will make it easier for people to live further away from work, because the stress of driving is eliminated.

Better, don't commute: you can drive in a loop in a RV during the night while you sleep. It will cost you less in gas than the local rent.

curious2 says

I am wondering how these developments will affect real estate prices, e.g. in cities, and REITs that depend on them. In my opinion, autonomous cars will enable convenient access to far-flung, modern housing, thus making cities and even suburbs less compelling.

This is not one of my areas of expertise, but I'll venture an educated guess for a change. I suspect autonomous cars will have little impact on real estate prices because they won't shorten the commute or change your school district. Real estate prices are mostly determined by location, particularly
1. Proximity to high paying jobs.
2. Proximity to highly desired natural resources like beaches and nature areas.
3. Location inside a good school district.

Autonomous cars do nothing to change these factors.

3D-printing of buildings should bring costs of new construction, and thus also old houses, down by making them even cheaper to build, but this will only apply to areas where land is largely vacant. In built out areas, this won't have a significant impact. It's all about owning surface area in any built out area like NY, LA, or Miami.

Anyway, that's my guess. I think it's right, but I'm not certain.

They used to say 'tele-commuters' would affect RE prices also. Never happened. I think because people fart around too much when not being watched. I know I do. No one is look at me now and I'm here!

Almost no employees are allowed to work from home, because they are more difficult to manage. And if your job can be done remotely why not from India???

ALSO here a new wrinkle to ponder: SCHOOL VOUCHERS. Trump might bring them to CA if he can pass a law at the federal level - he has 8 years to do it.

If you can live in Oakland in a secure building and get a 12k per year voucher to send you kids to a private school how will that effect the house prices in SF and adjacaent 'good school districts'.

I have met many many school district refugees, they are the secret sauce of the high priced markets. Vouchers would change that.

Quigley says

People want to be near other people, the young especially are energized by contact with others, and the social and entertainment opportunities that are present in proximity to many other people.

That's a good reason to live within Lyft/Uber range of those venues, and maybe even within walking distance during the university years, but I wonder how that changes over time. If people can go out drinking, stumble into the back seat of their autonomous car, and it takes them home, do they need to live nearby? Might they rather have a conveniently located bedroom community, so they can ride to a stadium concert in San Jose or a pub crawl in San Francisco, then ride home again? Current SFBA housing prices depend on all of the nearby cities and towns unanimously limiting new construction. If any municipality breaks rank, for example if a developer can lobby successfully at the level of any municipal government, then the relevant housing supply could increase much faster than with prior technology. Increasing supply might cause prices to fall, and the possibility might change the psychology of the whole market. "WinSun has also 3D printed a five-story apartment building – in a single day – and 10 affordable homes from recycled materials." The psychology based on assuming "housing prices can only go up" might change when people see a developer get enough votes on a city council to 3D print an apartment block and drop 1,000 units of housing&parking onto the local market in less than a year.

curious2 says

but I wonder how that changes over time

Ed Wallace on Wheels with Ed Wallace out of Dallas every Saturday morning thinks the greatest market for self-driving cars will be for aging Baby Boomers as they develop health problems--it will aid their mobility, but with little consideration for style any more than their current scooters have.

Hmm, I
Like the idea of an RV that just prowls the streets at night so you don't have to rent a place. But scale it down, say van size, and really deck it out. Then program it to visit several parking lots of big box stores and loiter a while, moving on before enforcement can be called. Sounds like a decent hack for dodging big city rents! People might wind up living in their cars as a lifestyle choice! Think about it for a minute: you can embrace minimalism, go anywhere and be there as long as you want, but never leave "home!"

"As America pulls out of NAFTA and starts a trade war with Canada over lumber imports, it is predicted that home building costs could increase by more than 20% over the next year. In order to keep America building without sacrificing margin, labor is shifting from humans with tool belts to job-ready robots.

An example of machines being added to the field is MIT’s Digital Construction Platform (DCP) – a 3D-printing fabrication robot. The DCP consists of a robotic arm that can print structures made of insulating foam at architectural scale — in other words, big enough to live in. In a test last July, MIT researchers printed an open dome structure in two days that was as large as a ranch house. The average single-family home takes about 7 months to build (US Census Bureau).
***
Shanghai-based WinSun 3D-printed walls last year for a six-story apartment building out of concrete that was assembled on site for immediate occupancy. According to WinSun, they were able “to save 60% of the materials typically needed to construct a home, and can be printed in a time span which equates to just 30% of that of traditional construction. In total, 80% less labor is needed, meaning more affordable construction, and less risk of injury to contractors.”
***
In the USA, Blueprint Robotics is manufacturing wood-framed houses today with industrial robots. Builders upload their architectural plans to Blueprint’s cloud-based platform which outputs within weeks pre-made walls, floors, and roofs. While the concept of pre-fabricated houses is not novel -Sears Roebuck & Co first introduced kits to homesteaders in the 1900s – Blueprint is the first to create an automated production line that pre-places everything from sheetrock to nails to lighting placement. This means modular structures can now be used for bigger and more luxurious developments from multi-million dollar mansions to large apartment buildings. Bloomberg News reported this week that even Marriott, the world’s largest hotel operator, is “turning to modular construction for some of its properties,” shipping the walls inside the same containers as the television sets and beds... Blueprint utilizes Germany-based Weinmann’s Stiles machines that have been shipping pre-fabricated homes in Europe for decades.
***
New York-based Construction Robotics is revolutionizing the masonry trade with its SAM100 (Semi-Automated Mason) robot, capable of working six times faster than the average human. SAM uses a combination of a conveyor belt, robotic arm, and concrete pump. Construction Robotics recently upgraded its product to enable the laying of popular “solider course” bricks. SAM costs the equivalent of the average salary of 10 masons or $500,000, and is already being deployed on sites throughout America.
***
Already Construction Robotics has competition from Australian-based Fastbrick Robotics. Fastbrick’s Hadrian X prototype claims to place bricks at an impressive rate of 1,000 per hour. The robot (shown above) can handle different brick sizes as well as cut, grind, mill, and route the bricks to fit any structure before putting them in place. Unlike SAM, which uses traditional bricks and mortar, the Hadrian machine is optimized for interlocking precision bricks (that are 15 times larger) and construction adhesive to hold the concrete structure."