[quasi]

Originally Posted by GS8

The new condo layouts are horrible. It's like they're made to be rented out. The 14 year old building I was living in Richmond had a slightly better layout than the 3 year old building I'm in now. Maybe these dumb layouts are just a recent thing...

The 52 year old building I once lived in had a better layout than both.

*heat and silverfish aside

I used to but don't actually live with four other people now unless you count the voices in my head.

They are trying to cram more units in per floor due to the cost of property which means less SF. You always have the windows or curtain wall depending on construction on one side of the unit, two sides if it's a corner unit. The Bedroom and the living room pretty much have to have windows which restricts what they can do with the layout.

Less units per floor and slightly larger units would make it better but that's money out of the developers pocket can't have that. As you said you're going to find more sf and better layouts in the older units.

Side note, Construction costs continue to rise putting upward pressure on prices. The price of lumber soared last year probably somewhere between 40-50% increase and steel has increased 25% in the last 60 days with two more increases of 10% + 15% coming in the next two months. For me as someone who gives fixed costs on construction as far out as 2 years a lot of uncertainty in the air, I thought they were full of shit when they were threatening increases during a pandemic and a recession but that shit is getting rammed through. Apparantly the main driver is the US market, Canadian companies can sell in the US for way more so their attitude is if you don't pay our prices we'll sell in the states take it or leave it.