The sale price of a house has little to do with labour. It's mostly about the number of humans competing to live in an area vs. how easy it is to get land in that area so that a new house can be built. I.e. the ratio of how many humans are involved vs the most limiting resource for producing the thing in question.
There is the point that how wealthy the competing humans are is also a major factor. But you're trying to bypass an argument about resource scarcity by pretending that resources aren't scarce. If you follow that path to its logical conclusion you're probably going to end up in a very confusing world because then it won't make sense why everyone doesn't just get a house (if someone can't afford a house, why not just upskill and learn how to build one? It isn't that hard and there are a lot of people who don't own a house but really want one and are more than happy to work for the privilege).
> It's mostly about the number of humans competing to live in an area vs. how easy it is to get land in that area so that a new house can be built
What attracts people to a place is often all the other people there. The actual land area is not close to being a limiting factor, we only build on about 1% of it.
> why everyone doesn't just get a house (if someone can't afford a house, why not just upskill and learn how to build one? It isn't that hard
You've not followed Colin Furze, I see. Even his basic concrete and steel tunnel and bunker isn't "just upskill" and done alone, he's got a team.
Clearly you've also never gotten a line by line price estimate for a house where you could save €50k by doing the plastering yourself, like I have turned down.
Some rough estimates for the time it takes to learn the necessay trades; if you think these are unreasonable, ask yourself how come e.g. plumbers cost so much on callout, or how long after graduating you were still a noob at whatever your day job is:
* Basic construction literacy (plans, codes, sequencing): ~1-2 years (or 3-6 months intensive self-study + mentoring)
* Site preparation & surveying basics: ~3-6 months
* Excavation & earthworks operation: ~6-12 months
* Concrete work (formwork, rebar, pouring, curing): ~1-2 years
* Masonry (brick/block work): ~1-2 years
* Carpentry (structural framing): ~2-4 years to solid competence
* Roofing (structure, waterproofing): ~1-2 years
* Plumbing (rough-in + fixtures): ~2-4 years
* Electrical (wiring, panels, code compliance): ~3-5 years
* HVAC installation: ~2-4 years
* Insulation & air sealing: ~3–6 months
* Drywall installation & finishing: ~6-12 months
* Interior carpentry (doors, trim, cabinetry basics): ~1-2 years
* Flooring (tile, wood, laminate): ~6-12 months
* Painting & finishing: ~3-6 months
* Window & door installation: ~6-12 months
* Exterior finishes (siding, stucco, cladding): ~1-2 years
* Project management (budgeting, scheduling, subcontractors): ~2-5 years practical experience
* Health & safety compliance: ~3-6 months initial + continuous practice
Becoming individually competent in all trades needed to build a house to a professional standard is roughly a 10-15 year path.
A single person can reach "good enough to build a simple house" faster (perhaps 5 years if you skip the optional bits and keep the process count as low as possible), but quality, speed, and compliance will be limiting factors. And you'd need some person or people with all that knowledge to tell you which processes you could get away with not using, otherwise you'd end up with the house equivalent of vibe coded software.
This is also why houses in need of significant maintenence go for so little, sometimes even less than the land they're on.
Heck, if even just *insulation* from that list was as easy as you seem to think an entire house is, the UK would halve its heating bills as fast as its factories could make (or ports could import) foam.
I don't buy the idea that Europe might have abandoned the concept of childhood education all of a sudden. Most people I spend quite a lot more than 5 years learning skills; I know someone who spent 15 years in the education system to end up working at a petrol station. This long list is not relevant. These skills are clearly easy enough to learn.
> Clearly you've also never gotten a line by line price estimate for a house where you could save €50k by doing the plastering yourself, like I have turned down.
So how do you explain poverty? Why don't these people spend 12 months learning how to plaster and start making bank?
Could there be some important limitation based on physics that you're failing to account for?
> I don't buy the idea that Europe might have abandoned the concept of childhood education all of a sudden.
My school education didn't include pouring concrete, plastering, laying tiles, architecture. Just about covered some basic woodworking, but not the structural kind.
> These skills are clearly easy enough to learn.
UK minimum wage times fifteen years is enough to buy a house. After tax. As a 100% mortgage. And then the house would have a guarantee. And you'd have contributed to your own state pension, which you wouldn't have done if you'd simply learned the skills on your own, so hopefully this hypothetical education was a paid internship. And if you'd specialised in literally any one of those skills instead of generalising, you'd be able to earn more.
> So how do you explain poverty? Why don't these people spend 12 months learning how to plaster and start making bank?
Watch a house getting built some time. There's a lot of people there. Even with UK's poorly thought-out greenbelts and planning permission driving up land prices, a house built in 6 months only takes 10 full time builders to have them be responsible for 50% of the average UK property price.
> Could there be some important limitation based on physics that you're failing to account for?
If it was physics, rich nations would just be outbidding poor nations for the resources to build houses. Poor nations do, in fact, have houses; they can afford them because their human labour is correspondingly cheap.
Ok, so let's quickly run through this argument. Stop me at the part you think is a mischaracterisation:
1) Resource constraints are negligible. Other than labour, obviously.
2) The skills to build a house are quick to acquire. It takes a couple of years. Less time than people are already spending anyway under general schooling as I assume the UK has 10 years compulsory education like most of the civilised world does.
3) The payback on a house is huge because the compensation for labour is high.
4) And I suspect you just demonstrated that people need to coordinate in groups of double-digit size to build a new house. Since they can sell the house for a 90% markup on costs they'd probably get wealthy doing it.
So is your argument here that the UK can comfortably house the entire world population? All 8.5 billion? Everyone gets a nice big apartment, maybe 2x the size of the current median? Let alone rental stress and housing unaffordability which are banished problems? Because given that we're ignoring the actual constraints (physical space, capital and materials) I'm not seeing what you think is the limiting factor here that doesn't just scale up as we add in more humans.
There is the point that how wealthy the competing humans are is also a major factor. But you're trying to bypass an argument about resource scarcity by pretending that resources aren't scarce. If you follow that path to its logical conclusion you're probably going to end up in a very confusing world because then it won't make sense why everyone doesn't just get a house (if someone can't afford a house, why not just upskill and learn how to build one? It isn't that hard and there are a lot of people who don't own a house but really want one and are more than happy to work for the privilege).