this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Do a search for homes in your area that are between 50 and 75 yrs old. These are the houses of the American dream. They are small and they are cheap. When I look in my town I see dozens that can be bought for less than 100k. We’ve got housing affordability problems to be sure. But also, a person in the 1960s living on a factory wage would have looked at a modern 3k sq ft “middle class” home and thought that the richest guy in town must live there.
Sure my grandfather raised 5 kids on a GM salary, but he did it in a 900 sq foot 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house. His house is still standing, Zillow says I could expect to pay 115k for it. The average GM line worker today would turn his nose up at it.
The only thing around me that's less than 100k are parking spots...
It’s weird, I didn’t say I found those prices in your town. In MY town a 60s palace is ~ 100k and a middle class home as described by the author is 400k
My point is that what is called a middle class home has slid way the fuck up market since the salad days of the 1960s.
You said they're small and cheap. Small is right, but the household income needed to afford the fixer upper is nearly twice the average household income in my city.
So if everybody moved to your town for the low price of homes what do you think would happen to the prices?
Not sure why you are getting down voted. It's true, house size has inflated significantly, and it drives cost. My first home was built in the 1970s and was 1500 sqft, bought for $136k in 2017 (Zestimate is about $200k now). My current one is about 3000 sqft and it's stupidly big, but it's what was available that's not a total fixer upper.
I saw an article in WaPo the other day about house size and affordability, with one couple having a baby on the way and deciding not to move despite "needing" more space. Their house was crammed to the gills with stuff. So. Much. Stuff. I think removal of a lot of the stuff would help free up living space (so did the WaPo commenters).
I just cleaned out my apartment and wow just the old shoes that were trash were taking up so much space.