>a house that cost $80k in 2012, that exact same house now costs $360k in 2024 I think this is making a similar mistake in sampling. Your baseline is a price t

>a house that cost $80k in 2012, that exact same house now costs $360k in 2024 I think this is making a similar mistake in sampling. Your baseline is a price that still hadn't recovered from the housing market crash of 2008-2010. I lived in Michigan during that time and I distinctly remember the ability to find reasonable homes for less than my annual salary. To be clear: I am not saying housing prices aren't inflated now, I'm just saying it probably isn't as bad as the author insinuates because they are cherry-picking their comparisons and also not controlling for important factors like home size. Houses built in the last decade are 40%-50% bigger than those of previous generations (although this trend may be reduced in more recent years as a response to increased construction cost). >But the people here are holding Masters Degrees and student debt I think this is a real driver of unaffordability, but not necessarily home prices. If all student loans were forgiven, I would expect home prices to increase (because people now have more money to pay for a home without a commensurate increase in supply). My opinion is that there are too many bad incentives in the housing market. Local municipalities prefer high property values because it increases tax revenue. Existing home owners like high housing prices because it makes them feel rich and gives them a revolving line of credit in home equity loans. When people have 70% of their net worth tied up in a single asset class, they are going to go to great lengths to protect it even if it screws other people over.