While you can still find quality builders out there, at least here in California the tendency seems to be putting things up quick and dirty. A building code sets a minimum level of quality. Most people don't realize it also tends to set a maximum.

Around here, the level of home construction is almost psychotic, and with enormous land prices, the tendency is to create immensely concentrated warrens of identical row houses. One old house with a yard gets torn down, and bingo, four new houses show up in the same space. Farmers trying to hang on to open space are taxed into oblivion until they sell out. The new homes are small and bedrooms are tiny. There are a lot of luxury items like fancy appliances and decoration, and the architecture does make clever use of the small spaces.

But I would kill for a basement.

My own house was constructed to bare quality minimums. I have rebuilt a few things myself, and once you're inside the walls, it really shows.

Copper wiring or aluminum? Wires used to be run through metal conduit. Now it's just wire threaded through the walls. Copper pipes are being replaced by plastic pipes, and in some recent work, actual goddam rubber HOSES. Houses with forced air heating used to have returns in every room, and metal ducting. Now there's one return under the furnace, and flexible "dryer hose" ducts everywhere.

Newer houses are better insulated than older ones.

Plywood has been replaced by particle board. This stuff oozes chemical stench, and I suspect this isn't thought about much.

Green lumber is considered "good enough," compared to kiln-dried wood. Unfinished frames of homes here sit in the rain for days. Then people wonder where the hell all the mold is coming from.

Of course all the good stuff costs extra money, and for a lot of people, a not-so-good house might be affordable while a quality one might not.

It seems obvious that developing techniques for factory-building homes would allow greater quality at lower cost. While a few maverick outfits are working on this, the industry has yet to get the concept out of the "trailer park" zone.