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That is not entirely true. Try comparing how many minimum wage paychecks you needed to buy a house then and with how many you need now and what is took to buil

That is not entirely true. Try comparing how many minimum wage paychecks you needed to buy a house then and with how many you need now and what is took to build a house (including permits and land) and what it takes now. It will be different form country to country and the tech level was lower but the majority of the young ones these days will neven own (paid morgage) a house by the time they are 35.

syshum 5y ago
While housing is extremely over priced right now, it is also important to note that a "standard home" has changed ALOT. My Grandparents raised 4 children in a 2 bedroom 1 bath 900 square foot home, which was a "standard home" in the 40/50's Today the standard home is 2x the size with more bathrooms, and larger lots. This is a source of alot of the problems as well. When developers build a subdivision they are not building small homes, they are building 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 2,000 square foot homes Overall The World Is Becoming a Better Place [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5s6aZCPSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5s6aZCPSg
- theelous3 5y ago
  To add to this: larger houses and plots hav the knock on effect of making under street piping need to be x3 or even x4 times longer to span the frontage, and have more complex outputs, and be larger with higher pressures - same but inverse for waste lines and their inputs. Same for electric lines, and those lines have to carry _way_ more power. And Internet cabling, and road surface standards are higher, blah blah forever. Size and modernity makes this not scale so linearly The debt of modern development is higher than the debt of the previous cycles.
- ElFitz 5y ago
  Really depends who you ask and where they live. Home sizes in Paris haven’t changed much over the past 50 years. Yet, prices have exploded. Heck, they’ve skyrocketed. For the exact same thing. Only a bit older. New apartments, no bigger but built in the suburbs, far from the subway (and not close to the regional trains) cost the same as the old ones of the same size did in Paris 10 years ago (and they were already priced crazily). With the same numbers of bathrooms but no job that could enable one to afford such a place less than 45 minutes away. The 2.000sqft 3 bathrooms home with a lawn appears to be a very American thing.
  - syshum 5y ago
    All of that is true, my comment was based on US Housing trends as the context of this discussion is around the American Suburb. Other nations have other issue, largely that they are locked in with limited amounts of land that can be repurposed for housing, thus this supply restraint is some of the cause of the price increases there. For example the nation of France is SMALLER in land area than the State of Texas yet has over 2x the number of people occupying that smaller land area The US has TONS of underused land that is continually being developed for new suburban housing additions
    - ElFitz 5y ago
      I have nothing to say. Other than that I find it really pleasant to have the opportunity for some civil discourse with some civil people. Thank you for that.
xyzzyz 5y ago
Alas, roads are not built by minimum wage workers chipping in a little bit from their meager salaries. They are built using tax funds, most of which is paid by upper middle class and the rich.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Which then percolate into the depths of the concrete mafia, developers, rent-seekers, to be washed, to minimize taxes. That could be fixed.

syshum 5y ago

While housing is extremely over priced right now, it is also important to note that a "standard home" has changed ALOT. My Grandparents raised 4 children in a 2 bedroom 1 bath 900 square foot home, which was a "standard home" in the 40/50's Today the standard home is 2x the size with more bathrooms, and larger lots. This is a source of alot of the problems as well. When developers build a subdivision they are not building small homes, they are building 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 2,000 square foot homes Overall The World Is Becoming a Better Place [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5s6aZCPSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5s6aZCPSg

theelous3 5y ago
To add to this: larger houses and plots hav the knock on effect of making under street piping need to be x3 or even x4 times longer to span the frontage, and have more complex outputs, and be larger with higher pressures - same but inverse for waste lines and their inputs. Same for electric lines, and those lines have to carry _way_ more power. And Internet cabling, and road surface standards are higher, blah blah forever. Size and modernity makes this not scale so linearly The debt of modern development is higher than the debt of the previous cycles.
ElFitz 5y ago
Really depends who you ask and where they live. Home sizes in Paris haven’t changed much over the past 50 years. Yet, prices have exploded. Heck, they’ve skyrocketed. For the exact same thing. Only a bit older. New apartments, no bigger but built in the suburbs, far from the subway (and not close to the regional trains) cost the same as the old ones of the same size did in Paris 10 years ago (and they were already priced crazily). With the same numbers of bathrooms but no job that could enable one to afford such a place less than 45 minutes away. The 2.000sqft 3 bathrooms home with a lawn appears to be a very American thing.
- syshum 5y ago
  All of that is true, my comment was based on US Housing trends as the context of this discussion is around the American Suburb. Other nations have other issue, largely that they are locked in with limited amounts of land that can be repurposed for housing, thus this supply restraint is some of the cause of the price increases there. For example the nation of France is SMALLER in land area than the State of Texas yet has over 2x the number of people occupying that smaller land area The US has TONS of underused land that is continually being developed for new suburban housing additions
  - ElFitz 5y ago
    I have nothing to say. Other than that I find it really pleasant to have the opportunity for some civil discourse with some civil people. Thank you for that.

xyzzyz 5y ago

Alas, roads are not built by minimum wage workers chipping in a little bit from their meager salaries. They are built using tax funds, most of which is paid by upper middle class and the rich.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Which then percolate into the depths of the concrete mafia, developers, rent-seekers, to be washed, to minimize taxes. That could be fixed.