Just because both the right and the left constantly preach this same affordability myth doesn't make it fact.
I did what the mythmakers should have done. I looked up housing prices and inflation. We bought our first home in 1962 for $14,000 at 6% interest. To call it a fixer upper would be a joke. A gravel driveway, no garage, and a dirt floor basement on a street zoned for business in a racially mixed neighborhood. Based on inflation figures, that would buy a house for $155,500 today. And I found several by checking the real estate ads. In that county one can find a slightly run down 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch in need of a strong 24 year old with a wife and baby, very little money and some home repair skills learned in high school. I'll leave out the part where he hired a young ex-con as part time help who left after one day.
Along with inflation since 1962 there have been a number of generous government programs to add to a low wage job which makes that home very affordable (and btw virtually no adult works at federal or state minimum--realistically entry at McDonald's is about $16/hour with benefits). What today's young homebuyer would have to give up today would be the same things we didn't have--college loan payments, eating out, travel, nice clothes, multiple tech toys, phones, TVs, and leisure activities.
It's not that a house today isn't affordable. It's the lifestyle, and that's something we choose. Get out of New York City or DC or Seattle or LA and there are plenty of places to live and jobs with opportunity. 325,000,000 of us manage to live outside those money pits (Co-pilot figured it out for me).
I did what the mythmakers should have done. I looked up housing prices and inflation. We bought our first home in 1962 for $14,000 at 6% interest. To call it a fixer upper would be a joke. A gravel driveway, no garage, and a dirt floor basement on a street zoned for business in a racially mixed neighborhood. Based on inflation figures, that would buy a house for $155,500 today. And I found several by checking the real estate ads. In that county one can find a slightly run down 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch in need of a strong 24 year old with a wife and baby, very little money and some home repair skills learned in high school. I'll leave out the part where he hired a young ex-con as part time help who left after one day.
Along with inflation since 1962 there have been a number of generous government programs to add to a low wage job which makes that home very affordable (and btw virtually no adult works at federal or state minimum--realistically entry at McDonald's is about $16/hour with benefits). What today's young homebuyer would have to give up today would be the same things we didn't have--college loan payments, eating out, travel, nice clothes, multiple tech toys, phones, TVs, and leisure activities.
It's not that a house today isn't affordable. It's the lifestyle, and that's something we choose. Get out of New York City or DC or Seattle or LA and there are plenty of places to live and jobs with opportunity. 325,000,000 of us manage to live outside those money pits (Co-pilot figured it out for me).
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