Chart median home cost vs. Median salary and you'll see the problem. Salaries have declined since the 1970s while home costs have doubled.

In 1970 about 1 year of earnings could buy a house. Today it takes 4 years salary.

> In 1970 about 1 year of earnings could buy a house. Today it takes 4 years salary.

That 1970 ratio seems wildly low compared to the data I found. Historical ratios seem to be 3-4x, with periods in the 1950s, mid-2000s, and perhaps soon [but not yet] of 4.5-5x. Housing seems slightly (~5%) cheaper now than in the 1950s and about 30% more expensive than the 1970s based on this ratio calculation.

https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco...

House purchase prices were lower in 1970 in part because mortgage rates (and therefore housing monthly payments per $100K borrowed) were dramatically higher.

That doesn't mesh with housing prices increasing while salaries have remained flat. The 7x increase in price I mentioned above was inflation adjusted, so your 2.6% cagr was above inflation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/how-much-housing-prices-have...

You asked me to chart house prices vs income. I did and that was the first data source I found.

I shared it because it didn’t mesh with what you were saying.

Median salary seems a strange figure to use instead of, say, median household income. Way more two-earner households in 2019 than 1970, and at least some fraction of that extra income is being used to bid up home prices.

Because a household must have two incomes now to afford a home. This comes at the expense of what is best for the family, especially the children. I think you're agreeing. Home prices are out of control.

I think you have that backwards: Women choose to enter the workforce in much higher numbers than 50 years ago at least partially because it's much more rewarding than the equivalent time spent in domestic labor. The result is higher earning households and thus higher demand for the less elastic supply of housing in some markets.

It's also almost certainly the case that dramatically lowered costs in other areas (food, telecommunications, household appliances) has freed up spending power which, again, has bid up prices in desirable markets.

Cheaper credit has greatly magnified the same effect, without necessarily driving up true costs.

As you've pointed out, housing isn't particularly expensive everywhere, just places where they're not building to keep up with rising demand.

Oh, and we haven't even mentioned that comparing the median home in 1970 to the median home in 2019 is not exactly apples-to-apples, starting with square footage.

I believe, as did my single mother, that women going to work hurt families also. She said before she died, women "shot themselves in the foot and made it much harder on single incomes to support a family. Women always had a choice to work. Now they don't."

Maybe you have something wrong. Maybe it wasn't more rewarding to go to work. People on their death beds don't say I wish I'd gone to work more. No. They say they wish they'd spent more time with family.