> The article does not mention the cost of these houses which would seem to be the major point of information.
I don't know if it's possible to provide an accurate number. Although it's possible to specify material costs, the cost of construction work is mainly driven by labor cost and the organizational capabilities of each contractor. Mexico's government could provide the info on their own contracts, but that wouldn't be very representative of what they could cost in, say, the US, where wages are far higher.
> I think these developments can market themselves a lot better if they drop the terms "low income"/ "low cost"/"social housing" and adopted something like "young people homes" or "starter homes".
These projects are mainly driven by the need to cut costs right down to the bone, even if this means that the housing projects are, say, far from luxurious.
The main reason is that this sort of project is targeted at local and central governments who feel the need to spend a part of their budget in social housing projects, whose main goal is a mix of improving people's housing, eliminate shanty towns, serve as the first stage of an urban renewal project, and even plain old populist propaganda to get them reelected.
Therefore, the target market is a set of organizations with deep pockets whose decision is mainly political and is driven by cost-benefit analyses, but ultimately aren't the ones who will actually use the end-result.
Therefore, as cost is king, these social housing projects tend to be located in regions whose real estate value is very low, mainly due their sub-par location. As the people who will end up living in these housing projects, due to their low income, essentially don't have any better alternatives than living in a substandard house in a sub-par location (because, given an alternative, they would live elsewhere) then that's exactly the sort of people who will end up living in these homes.
I don't know if it's possible to provide an accurate number. Although it's possible to specify material costs, the cost of construction work is mainly driven by labor cost and the organizational capabilities of each contractor. Mexico's government could provide the info on their own contracts, but that wouldn't be very representative of what they could cost in, say, the US, where wages are far higher.
> I think these developments can market themselves a lot better if they drop the terms "low income"/ "low cost"/"social housing" and adopted something like "young people homes" or "starter homes".
These projects are mainly driven by the need to cut costs right down to the bone, even if this means that the housing projects are, say, far from luxurious.
The main reason is that this sort of project is targeted at local and central governments who feel the need to spend a part of their budget in social housing projects, whose main goal is a mix of improving people's housing, eliminate shanty towns, serve as the first stage of an urban renewal project, and even plain old populist propaganda to get them reelected.
Therefore, the target market is a set of organizations with deep pockets whose decision is mainly political and is driven by cost-benefit analyses, but ultimately aren't the ones who will actually use the end-result.
Therefore, as cost is king, these social housing projects tend to be located in regions whose real estate value is very low, mainly due their sub-par location. As the people who will end up living in these housing projects, due to their low income, essentially don't have any better alternatives than living in a substandard house in a sub-par location (because, given an alternative, they would live elsewhere) then that's exactly the sort of people who will end up living in these homes.