That’s a mixture of inflation (in the price of building materials) and cost disease [1] (for the labour). A lot of other things have gotten way cheaper (compute

That’s a mixture of inflation (in the price of building materials) and cost disease [1] (for the labour). A lot of other things have gotten way cheaper (computers, TVs, etc) because of advances in technology whereas houses have not. It still takes roughly the same amount of labour for framers, drywallers, painters, and roofers to build a house today as it did 20 years ago but the cost of living for all those workers has gone up so you need to pay more for the same amount of work. This is not labour going up in value, it’s labour going up in price. On the other hand, an old poorly maintained house is worth a lot less in real value terms than a brand new house on the same lot. This is why houses are a depreciating asset. That may be hard to see, though, because the land may be going up in value a lot more than the house may be declining. And of course, just like a car, if you maintain a house and keep it in good shape you can preserve more of its value. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...