Personal Asset Architecture - Breaking Free from the Fiat-Driven Housing Market
Personal Asset Architecture - Breaking Free from the Fiat-Driven Housing Market
Subheading – How Individuals Can Opt Out of the Fiat-Driven System and Create Homes with long term value
As a self-inflicted residential architect, I am passionate about creating new, renovated homes that matter to interesting people. However, I’ve realized that the traditional housing market is built on a foundation of fiat currency, leading to several problems, including the potential devaluation of homes and, increasingly, the creation of empty stores of value.
The Fiat Death Spiral
Construction financing drives the most decisions in the housing market, which leads to a system where production homes are built to sell and create an initial profit rather than to provide a high-quality construction or a well-conceived living space.
The Choice: Custom vs. Fiat
When building or buying a home, you have two main options: a custom home built or renovated to your specifications or a production home pre-designed and pre-built by a builder.
Fiat-Driven Homes: The Short-Term Solution
Fiat-driven homes are built to sell quickly, often using materials that fit the deals proforma. Because of lower-quality materials and construction methods, Fiat homes depreciate more like cars than buildings.
Custom Homes: The Long-Term Solution
On the other hand, custom homes are typically built with higher quality and better design because the owner and designer are more invested in creating one-of-a-kind designs.
A New Approach: Personal Asset Architecture
As an architectural design firm owner focusing on homes, I’ve always known that the percentage of all homes architects design is low. I’ve used the low percentage as a filter for working with longer-term thinking clients, typically paying with cash. Clients who pay with cash have the flexibility to pay for what they want, allowing them to think about the total cost over the life of the house rather than just jumping through the hoops of a loan-to-value appraisal.
Bitcoin standard architectural practice and Bitcoin standard homes are the escape valves to continue the work we want for the individuals we want to work for. Our thesis is that Bitcoin can improve the housing market, both for our practice and for the clients we work with. Our thesis is that Bitcoin changed the housing market for our practice and the people we work with to build a personal architecture that is as hard an asset as Bitcoin.
Asset Architecture Benefits
Homes designed in a BTC standard have four big benefits for the individual to create personal asset architecture that holds value over time.
1. Allows owners to think in a longer time horizon – Decisions made when designing homes need to consider a longer time horizon to include the operating cost of the house in addition to the cost of construction. Production homes are built to sell and create profit based on profit produced, netting profit by the sales price vs cost. Custom homes have more flexibility in spending more on quality and life cycle improvements.
2. Allows for a density of design thought - Can you design a better-conceived home that considers how to use space more effectively to provide a denser space so the house can require less square footage? Can the smaller square footage be planned to work as a lifetime home from a starter home, through offspring to empty nesting and multigenerational housing?
3. Providing a return on investment beyond money – A home should produce a better quality of life. Can homes produce income, food, energy, resilience, conservation of resources, and interior air quality and become your favorite place to be? Can the utility of needing a place to live be your family citadel?
4. Working with the system to minimize the power of the system to increase taxes on the asset - Can we design homes to reduce property taxes with a creative design to minimize bedrooms and the taxable house value? Can we put more investment and design in outdoor space that helps owners maximize the use of properties for uses that are not taxed, like quality outdoor space or properties that produce food and energy?
The future of housing is uncertain, but one thing is evident from the trenches: the traditional fiat-driven system is not sustainable. Personal Asset Architecture offers a new approach to housing design that prioritizes long-term value, efficiency, and quality. By embracing this approach, we can create precious homes that produce a return on investment beyond money. The future of housing is in our hands, and it’s time to create a new way of thinking about home design.
What is possible?
As individual owners and architects, we can build Stores of value buildings. By incorporating the goal of creating Personal Asset Architecture, we can create homes that produce a return on investment that goes beyond money and minimize the values of a banking system and the ability to increase taxes on the asset.
Stay humble, stack stakes, and when you are ready, choose to build stuff that holds actual value.**
HODL on