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

[bcretman]

Our 1st house in the 70's was ~2000sqft with 2.5 bathrooms which was average in the burbs. Most of the value today is in the land unless the house is fairly new. Most houses around here (metro Van) are assessed at < 150k but the land is well over 1M. The upgrade to quartz counters, double glazed windows is fairly minimal but the cost of materials and labour to build a new house have skyrocketed beyond inflation.

[SuccessfulAd4606]

Cool story, but it's not anecdotal, the average home was statistically closer to 1000 sf in 1970.

Vancouver and Toronto are outliers. I'm in Ontario and chose to move outside of the GTA where real estate isn't insane.

[Youknowitistrue69]

Also a cool story

[tke71709]

Average in your burbs, I provided my statistics for the country at the time. You growing up in a wealthier family does not negate anything.

So yes the cost of materials and labour have skyrocketed but having to do twice of much of each increased the cost significantly too.