More population. Still the same amount of earth.
Also Republican policies.
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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Interesting claim. Let's look into it.
Average home price in 1970: $25k I found a few different figures on this one, and averaged them out.
$25k 1970 dollars in 2026 per CPI: $220,251 https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=25000&year1=197001&year2=202604
not necessary, but gives context: Average (not median) home price today: $502k https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
Median home price today: $410k https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
"The median money income of all families in 1970 was about $9,870" https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1971/demo/p60-80.html
Median family income in 2024 (most recent year reported): $105,800 [note: does anyone believe this? FRED is claiming median family income went up 45% in the past decade and I find that EXTRAORDINARILY suspect. Few people get COLA over 3% and many getting fuckall.] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA646N
roughly a 10.7X increase
My best guess is that Mr. Brooks, using slightly different numbers (sources vary, exact years, etc...), to arrive at: 1970 Home Price + Flat Income Gains = $138,000. This is not great methodology, as growth is looked at in percentages for a reason. To illustrate, suppose instead of a house we were looking at candy bars. Let's say in 1970 a candy bar was a dime and today it's $2. Grafting raw wage gains onto candy bars, we're saving over $80k on each candy bar!!! Oh wait, that's silly. Let's stick with percentages.
Using the official wage numbers, we arrive at "the average home today would be $267,500". This is more accurate yet still a massive departure from where we are today.
So... what actually broke?
There are several explanations for this divergence.
The Good: Houses today are bigger and have better construction standards. Please, before you start typing a survivorship bias based claim about your house from 1905 that's still in great shape today, read up on survivorship bias. Yes, there are modern builders who do shoddy work (we've all seen the Youtube videos), but overall a house built to code in 2026 is significantly more advanced. A fair amount of the cost increase can be captured here.
The Bad: Rent seeking. Figurative and literally. Somehow someone was like "hey, I'm going to get rich by making a basic necessity worse" and nobody beat them within an inch of their life to discourage others. Rookie mistake by our society.
The Ugly: Official numbers are suspect at best. This was true before 2025 and whoa boy is it true now. Inflation is chronically under-reported BY DESIGN. That means actual inflation is driving up the cost of houses and cans of bean and things, while reported inflation is being used to determine your pay raise (that is, if you even get one). This divergence that started in the 90s is hitting critical mass here in the roaring 20s and we're probably fucked as I haven't heard anyone in a position of power even recognize this problem, let alone suggest how to fix it.
Renting out a single family home for longer than 3 months at a time without living in it should be an actual crime, or at least extremely (50-80%) tax heavy (the taxes then going towards house subsidies). Owning an unoccupied home should be taxed even worse. A corporation can count as a single person, so a property management company can own a single house OR as many apartment complexes as they want before tax punishment.
The modern version of Airbnb as a business model (people owning 5+ houses to rent for daily prices often in excess of hotel prices with none of the hotel benefits + "cleaning fees") should have millionaires hanging from trees.
I foolishly believe the above two policies alone would cut home prices by at least half.
Homes as equity.
Once they were considered investments, then they were subject to the "Line Must Go Up" tenet of capitalism.
Capitalism has always been broken.
But an underlying problem is the pseudo-scientific ideology of "economics". It's what fuels these kind of dumb questions. Nothing broke. The denial of human needs has always been a feature, not a bug.
Spoken like somebody who has never cracked a book on the subject.
Some people think religion is real too, but it's only real because people believe in it.
Honestly they aren't entirely wrong, there's basically two types of economics financialization which is basically all bullshit and proper economic systems which is things like production, logistics, and services. You could probably burn the entire financialized side of the system down and it'd probably help the overall real economy in the long term hell it'd probably help in the short term if not the immediate.
Bingo. You got it.
Capitalism
I think nearly all western nations have similar problems, so it's not solely a US thing? I see people talking about affordability in Toronto, London, and New Zealand at least. I recently saw a video of a Chinese software engineer living in a makeshift shack on the roof of a building and still needing to do food delivery on a hacked ebike to make ends meet, so it may not be only a western thing either.
I would guess it's a multitude of issues causing it. Wealth disparity and the ballooned financial sector is probably the largest contributor. Resources (lumber, fossil fuels, etc) getting more expensive to extract and transport probably plays some role. Stricter building and sanitation codes, zoning, and communities fighting low income housing being built probably does too.
Nothing's broken, least of all the laws of physics. Detached, single family homes are low density housing. The land that makes up any given metro area is basically a two dimensional plane. That plane is a finite amount of space that can only be filled with so many buildings. Detached homes are almost always limited to just a few stories at the most, and they can't be stacked on top of each other, so vertical expansion is essentially non-existent. The only way to build more detached homes is to spread out horizontally along the two dimensional plane. But the further you go out horizontally from the metro center, the further you are from the jobs and amenities that are associated with an urban core. The detached houses that are nearest to that center are in the highest demand, so their prices go up the most. You can continue to just build out horizontally, but after a while you simply run out of land. Or, the houses get so far from where the jobs and amenities are that it's not viable.
There are areas in the US where you can buy a home for $138,000, but most people probably don't want to live there, which is why the homes only cost $138,000. Areas in greater demand will have higher home prices. In the areas that are in higher demand, again, the only option is horizontal sprawl away from the metro center, if you're building only detached single family homes.
This is also a function of transit efficiency. It's not the distance to a metro center that is the problem, it's the time to get to that metro center. Our commuter rail network is woefully slow. Our highways have design issues that create choke points that cause traffic jams. If living 20 miles from the urban centers was only 20 minutes away, then it wouldn't be an issue. In fact, it might be desirable to go home to a quiet place, but have more action a short commute away.
Not even going to mention the poor design of suburban areas that lack a proper downtown of their own.
This is also a function of transit efficiency. It's not the distance to a metro center that is the problem, it's the time to get to that metro center.
Yeah, but the further a suburban neighborhood is from the metro center, the more time it will take to get there, necessarily. Maximally efficient transportation would minimize the travel time but not eliminate it. Even with great transportation options, the further the sprawl, the longer the commute.
Not even going to mention the poor design of suburban areas that lack a proper downtown of their own.
But if a suburban area grows enough to need urban infrastructure it kinda stops being suburban. Which is fine, there's nothing wrong with increasing the number of urban areas. I don't think we should have only a few Tokyo style mega cities. But I also don't think higher density is necessarily a bad thing. I get that not everyone wants to live in a relatively high density urban area, but I'm also sure that we can't just keep sprawling out forever.
Faster express trains with better access and less stops. In combination with improved roadways
They should start building china style huge apartment buildings.
Stupid that we aren't yet doing it
Idk about China's style, but we do have high rises. And Washington state is on a state level encouraging building higher density in urban areas. This has led to increased density zoning, and is expected to lead to, in the not too distant future, an area that was once single family housing to be rezoned for high rises.
so people who get reimbursed (The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution mandates that if the government takes private property for public use, the government must provide "just compensation." In Kohl v. United States, 91 U.S. 367 (1875), the Supreme Court held that the government may seize property through the use of eminent domain, as long as it appropriates just compensation to the owner of the property. Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent_domain) will just move to where their careers provide stability as well as being able to afford a single family home.
If you can afford a home and all that comes with owning one, do it up. Nothing wrong with being a home owner. I will never shit on success because you have to be successful in life to purchase a home. I'll shit on the ultra rich who are gonna profit on those apartments and make it so that they're gonna go to shit or use materials that are just good enough and a structural falure happening.
The government isn't tearing houses down, simply permitting larger multi family dwellings in neighborhoods specifically targeted for growth. Those areas in Seattle are usually along the light rail line, and elsewhere are closer to city centers.
Most who sell will move to more suburban areas elsewhere, often in town, others will move to something like a townhouse, but regardless there will be more residences available in higher desirability areas
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The 1974 Tax Code re-write, that baked Trickle Down Economics into our tax code, created the Oligarch class, giving them the disposable income to manipulate political policy to their further benefit.
The Rand Corp issued a report on income inequality, and the situation is far worse than most people think.
The median salary of $43K in 1975 has increased to only $50K today, while they would have been making $92K if the tax code hadn't been steadily re-written to enrich the wealthy at the cost of the middle class and poor.
In that same time period, the mean income for the top 1% went from $289K to $1.384 million, while they would have been making $630K under the old tax codes.
Thats a 17.4% increase in the lower median, and an increase of 321.6% in the 1% median. Clearly there has been an upwards distribution of wealth at the expense of the middle class since the tax codes started to be re-written in 1974 to favor the top economic tier.
Read more about it :
New York Mag: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/09/rand-study-how-high-is-inequality-us.html
Fast Money: https://www.fastcompany.com/90550015/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1
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People in the thread talking about supply and demand curves and their impact on prices are, in my view, generally correct. But there's another component to that which came in on the same time frame, that people generally don't seem to discuss / highlight, though I'm not entirely sure why?
Since the 1970s, women have significantly shifted into the work place -- though typically not in the realm of construction/home building and trades. On the demand side, it puts upward pressure on prices because you have 'double' the income to bid up prices / a ton more buyers. And the lack of proportional increases in the sector workers, puts upward price pressure on the supply side too as there are more people wanting homes, but relatively fewer people building them.
Another huge component in the mix, is the increase in city building requirements/regulations. Permitting/city fees alone can cost a person hundreds of thousands of dollars on a build. In some areas, typically densely populated urban spots, such requirements make sense for safety reasons. In others, such requirements reduce the number of companies able to comply, and the degree of innovation in the sector. "Normally" you'd have companies trying to reduce operating expense through innovation in their processes to get more market share, but housing doesn't really function like that.
Interesting point about adding women entering the workforce en masses adding more buying power to the housing market while adding relatively less supply.
I also think that supply and demand is generally true, along with another commentor's perspective that construction quality has gone up, safety regulations more protective, etc.
I'll also add another factor that I haven't seen mentioned yet: interest rates and other mortgage terms. Depending on where in the world you are, interest rates are generally lower and allowable mortgage terms generally longer than they were 50 years ago. I recently compared my initial mortgage payment of my first home in 2020 with the initial mortgage payment of my father in 1985, and found that they were almost identical when adjusted for inflation. My house however, was newer, larger, in better condition, and in a bigger city. In my anecdotal case at least, I got a better deal than my dad... at least until he eventually renewed at a much lower interest rate after the debt crisis subsided.
Not sure where you are in the world, but in the 1980's there was a huge interest rate spike in many areas i think -- Canada for example had interest rates spike up to 20% practically overnight as a result of US trade shenanigans, and instability in the middle east.... (sounds familiar, though we haven't seen as drastic a shift this time). But like, for 40 years prior that, and 20 years post the 90s, it hovered around 5%. Recently (post 2010) it fluctuates a bit, but generally around that 3-5% mark still. Lately they ticked up a bit I think.
Anyhow, point being that your Dad's first payment in a 1985 home is basically a payment during a time of rather high rates/uncertainty. Interest rates in 2020 were at historic lows, so in terms of your first payment amounts, they were at one of the lowest rates in recent history (even if the house prices were still really high). So you're comparing a period of really bad rates for your dad, during a short period of time that saw the worst rates recorded, against a period of really artificially good rates for yourself. I dunno, I don't think that'd be too big a factor expanded out.
Besides, mortgages were a lot easier to get, in general, back 20-30+ years. Down payments were flexible, regulators weren't so anal / hostile towards industry, and credit checks were far less common place. Hell, I'm just an elder millennial, and I got my first condo more than a decade ago by doing a mortgage plus a signature loan to shore up the down payment (avoiding the additional insurance fees for CMHC stuff) -- so not only were the downpayment requirements FAR less (5%, compared to 5% to 20% depending on the price of the home, but always more than 5% in metropolitan areas), but you didn't even need that full 5% down payment - you could get like 3%, and do a personal loan for the other 2%. "Signature" loans were common place, where there was no real collateral other than the borrowers word -- small FIs routinely extended 20-30k credit equivalents. That sort of setup is practically unheard of these days, and would get a FI in serious trouble with most regulators. But either way, that's more about 'getting people into homes', than it is about the base home-prices and how they changed relative to other assets. But the broader point being that I don't think the interest rates are a significant factor in it, especially if you're comparing two historic outliers in your case.
Oh, the other obvious factor is immigration, particularly in Canada's scene. Like if you look at a real home price index and compare it against Canada's immigration volumes, they have similarly timed spikes and dips for good reason. Rents and housing prices have been falling ever since Canada put a cap on immigration/immigration trends reversed (particularly students for the rent side). Canada recently had a year where 100% of our population growth was from immigration. The population of the country and the demand for housing is artificially pumped through the immigration program, to the detriment of locals / people interested in sustainable growth patterns. You can't dump 700,000 new people into a country, all as grown adults needing homes and all the supports/amenities associated, and NOT expect there to be issues. Hell, Trudeau appointed his grade school buddy Miller as our immigration minister, and while there he was all "We need more people! Immigration is great! The more we can get the better it is for Canada!" -- then people got really pissed about housing/affordability, and Miller got re-appointed to a housing file, at which time he's suddenly sayin "We gotta cap immigration! It's causing too much strain on our systems, its not sustainable!". Guy just shills whatever he's told to shill. Our government explicitly takes actions to try and jack up those housing prices, especially as it's become one of the only 'growth' areas for gdp. Housing price-related taxes pay for numerous big gov depts, so if they dip, the gov has serious problems.
What broke is they allowed housing to be a commodity allowing speculators to bid on.
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Private businesses being allowed to buy up the market to artificially increase prices and scarcity. How else can you ensure real estate is a solid investment stream?
I think that's part of it, but a larger part--having been a local reporter--is that government is run by people trying to keep property values high. In cities, that's real estate developers and landlords. In suburbs, it's typical homeowners.
Most construction brings down property values: increase supply=lower demmand=lower prices. There is therefore a strong political will to oppose ALL new construction.
The second concern is: how do we keep poor people out? Things like minimal lot sizes are designed to keep the prices up and limit the amount of new citizens.
The third concern is: how can we spend the most of our money on OUR children's education. Many suburbs are spiritually and economically designed to do ONE thing: get kids into good colleges. That means high property valuations across the board so the most money can go to individual children's education. There are very many suburbs people don't even move to UNLESS they're having children, and they move out when their kids leave school.
If you build an affordable apartment building in one of these suburbs and children start moving in, what happens? THe money from the rich houses is now diverted away from the rich children and towards the poor children, who are now paying much less in taxes. With schools less valuable, the property value of ALL the houses go down. "We're all in this together," the rich people realize, refering only to themselves, of course.
I do like the oligopoly narrative, but we have to face that we are facing MASSIVE FAILURES on a social and political levels. Everybody is scrapping for themselves and building walls and pulling up ladders and basically being as self-interested me-and-mine as possible, at the same time money is becoming the dominant form of political activity with which the masses of regular people can not compete.
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What actually broke?
People figured out they could buy more than one house and rent it to other people, paired with a housing shortage partially due to people/companies owning all the houses, paired with technology to allow you to rent your houses out for a few days here and there to make income.
We allowed house ownership to become entangled with entrepreneurship.
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Here's the history of US inflation in a nutshell.*
Lyndon Johnson wanted to have a Great Society and have a quick win in Vietnam. He thought that a big buildup could give the US a knockout blow, but it turned into an expensive quagmire. The US was dropping a dozen Hiroshimas worth of bombs on the jungle every week. This meant that US steel mills were working 24/7 and not getting updated. LBJ is printing money to pay for this, because he doesn't want to raise taxes.
Nixon comes in in 1969, promising to end the war. Instead he triples down on the policy of printing money and overworking the factories. Then the Arab Oil Boycott hits. Prices of everything jumps. Many small manufacturing businesses either go broke or relocate to non-Union states. All those fancy Manhattan lofts you see today started as factory buildings.
And while the US steel mills were running day and night, Japan and Germany couldn't get American steel, so they started building their own mills. Mills that needed a lot less power than the aging US mills. Suddenly Americans were willing to buy a tiny Japanese car instead of a Detroit model that got 6 mile to a gallon.
Jimmy Carter gets one term as President before the Iran Hostage Crisis ruins him. Carter hires Paul Volker to run the Fed and save the economy. Volker's plan works, but it's Ronald Reagan who gets the credit. Ronnie kept Volker in place.
Reagan has his own version of Nixon's print and spend policy. Tax cuts for the rich and bank deregulation create an artificial boom in the 1980s that lead to a stock market 'correction' in 1987.
When Nixon came into office, 'middle class' was one Union job paying for a family of four and $1 million was considered a vast fortune that could buy a dozen houses.
By the time Bush Sr. was done, 'middle class' was two incomes to support the household, and $1 million was what a rich guy paid for a party.
*this is a very brief description, leaving out many details.
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i think that lots of things broke.
- one issue is that living expenses didn't rise, but wages fell. this creates the same net effect to the average person, but it's structurally different. due to ongoing automation (which has actually started since 1900) wages have gone down continuously (in real terms, but not nominally because inflation outpaced that decline). meanwhile, for some expenses such as housing, the real prices have not gone down as quickly, therefore we see a net increase of the ratio of housing prices to wages.
- another issue seems to me that the american public (and unfortunately also large parts of the european public) have been convinced that they need "more" - that they need bigger houses, cars, etc.
the consequence is that new houses are bigger, and therefore more expensive.
there's also other issues that are sometimes being quoted, such as: housing being seen as a commodity, housing being held by a few big house-owners. but i'm not convinced that that alone could cause prices to skyrocket.
if there's a whole lot of developers trying to gain from housing economy, then there would be more houses being built until there's more housing supply than demand, then prices would go down again until they stabilize somewhere. but that doesn't seem to be what's happening.
sometimes, the city and community are called responsible for keeping land area expensive (by not making more land area available to be built on). this probably varies geographically, and i find it quite hard to believe that communities around the (western) world would not have realized this one simple trick to make houses more affordable again. so i guess there's more to it.
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