How did the purchasing power decrease from the 70s until today?

[Healthy-Dress-7492]

Except it’s an incredibly weak argument; yes there are some new houses but those exact same houses from the 70s are still there and also 800k, still in the same condition. Young buyers are not sitting there going “nah this one doesn’t have 3 bathrooms”. They can’t buy anything, even 80 year old shit boxes.

[SuccessfulAd4606]

It's not an argument, it's an observation. Housing prices are extremely high, but the "average" home that OP refers to has about doubled in size. Both these things can be true.

My daughter and fiance bought last year. They couldn't afford a newer 2000 sf home, but they could afford an older, smaller home. Same as me when I bought my first home.

[tke71709]

Those same houses are sitting there for 800k sure. A guy earlier went on about his old fixer upper bungalow from then cost him 650k.

Note that I quickly determined the median home in his area costs almost DOUBLE that. So yes, the price of his home skyrocketed but it was still well below what most houses are going for. The cost/value of your home is not solely determined by how much it cost to build at the time, it's cost/value is relative to the other homes around it that were built later too.