I forget who it was, but they said "Everyone is born short on housing." You bring up cars and TVs - for new cars, the thing actually being sold is not so much

I forget who it was, but they said "Everyone is born short on housing." You bring up cars and TVs - for new cars, the thing actually being sold is not so much the car, it is the financing. This is less true than it once was[1], but it's still true. [1] GM divested GMAC. A/the reason to buy (in noncoastal or otherwise un-bubbly areas) is to save a couple hundred a month in rent. It's limited to people with good credit, so you trade a down payment and fees for a "discount" month over month. There is only so much developers can to to push costs down. I've always bought homes a generation behind the current developments - that's been the happy valley between price and features for me. I also spend well less than 2x salary purchase price. But so long as government policy actively pursues wage suppression, housing is much less of an investment.