Yea I can agree that 100k is very much not what it used to be 10-15 years ago.. the main difference is that a “cheap house” in many areas that are doing economi

Yea I can agree that 100k is very much not what it used to be 10-15 years ago.. the main difference is that a “cheap house” in many areas that are doing economically well on the West Coast like Seattle, Portland, Bay Area, LA, are much more expensive than they were even before the 2008 crash.. so if you make 100k/year you end up with maybe 6k take home each month and if you mortgage is 3k/month, then spend saying 2k on fixed expenses per month then you realize you have very little leeway especially if you are trying to pay off student loans as well.. I think the combination of cities trying to get people to live closer by reducing investment in roads and focusing on density and local rail and bus systems has made it that it’s way more painful to live far outside the city.. so housing effectively is higher. Then the much increased cost of student loans compared to the past, you have a much greater set of fixed costs compared to people 20 years ago..