“If you’re working in the realm of market-driven development and trying to make it affordable sans subsidies, what you’re really doing is gaming the appraisal market,”
“In the end you’re working with three factors: it’s land cost, construction cost, and development cost, and you’re trying to drive all that down,” Tate says.
“Land costs are easy—make the land smaller, that’s where the small lots come from. Development costs come down with an integrated system and construction costs are being thoughtful about how you put the project together.”
“What we’re pushing against is the problem with speculative housing—and housing in general—which is people build larger homes because that’s what markets well,” Tate says.
“Being blunt here, they keep costs low by using cheaper materials. We’re trying to invert that. Materially, it’s a small house, but it’s not a tiny house. The term used is ‘right sizing’; we’re just trying to keep it as trim as we can. That money [saved on size] gets pushed back into finishes and quality details.”
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3055568/a-bold-experiment-in-building-homes-the-middle-class-can-afford