Why does it take 30 years to buy an old house for the typical family?

[Anonymous]

1. Salaries have not grown proportionately with housing costs.
2. For many of us, doing better than the previous generation isn’t saying much. My parents came here penniless (I was a child) and worked their fingers to the bone just to get on their feet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Salaries have not grown proportionately with housing costs.
2. For many of us, doing better than the previous generation isn’t saying much. My parents came here penniless (I was a child) and worked their fingers to the bone just to get on their feet.

Exactly this. I'm making more than my parents were at my age, even when adjusting for inflation, but what that buys me is not even close to what their lower salaries bought them because of insane increases in housing costs.

A typical mortgage on a typical house in upper NW DC even with the crazy interest rates of the time would have been around $1,200 in 1985. That's $3,224 in 2022 dollars. What does $3,224 get you today? A gut job rowhouse in far NE with crappy schools? A "luxury" 1br condo downtown? Certainly not a SFH in the Wilson pyramid like it used to.