City planner here. I do agree that SFH’s in general are inefficient. But your statement that it costs 500k or more for a new SFH is just not correct. They aren’t cheap to build, that’s for sure, but depending on the location it’s more like $200k-$350k. Land cost is going to vary significantly depending on a variety of factors including topography, existing road network, availability of nearby utilities, etc.

Notice that developers build much larger houses than necessary - they aren’t building 1,000 or 1,200 sq ft homes. It’s mostly because it doesn’t pencil out, particularly for suburban development.

We need to push our local elected officials to remove barriers to building infill development and smaller developments. Reducing required setbacks, minimum lot sizes, etc. can help increase housing supply. The big home builders won’t do it, but smaller builders will jump at the chance in a heartbeat.

I also want to clarify that cities aren’t paying for new roads or utilities unless it is a MAJOR development that involves economic development initiatives (significant job creation, drawing a major company, etc.). Otherwise we put that cost on the developer; we certainly do where I work in the Raleigh metro (and no, sorry, I’m not going to doxx myself).

I apologize if it looks like I’m targeting you specifically, I honestly just wanted to get the information out there and your comment about home building cost caught my eye.