Posted on 04/06/2024 11:02:00 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
(NEXSTAR) — Decades ago, buying a home for $100,000 or less was the norm. Today, you need to earn at least $100,000 just to afford a “typical” home, according to a new analysis.
Data tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows the average sales price for homes sold in the U.S. was $492,300 last quarter, down from $552,600 a year prior. While there are signs of improvement, home sale prices are nowhere near where they were 40 years ago: in Q4 of 1984, the average sales price for houses sold nationwide was $97,800.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Headline says “earn”.
A lot of people get paid way more than they earn.
I guess I am a bit too literal, or pedantic.
I frequently have to visit California on business, and have seen “mobile homes” for sale at the $500k price level.
Seriously people, The Hill is the enemy media. Can’t we just excerpt the important things of the article so we don’t have to give them clicks?
“Typical” is misleading.
“I frequently have to visit California on business, and have seen “mobile homes” for sale at the $500k price level.”
That may explain the disappearance of some of the RV’s parked on so many streets in the counties around SF.
Maybe people needing housing bought those homes.
I feel very bad for young people. They are stuck growing up in a world that has been destroyed by the older generations that came before them.
A lot of entry level jobs are really just dead-end jobs. You start at the bottom, and you stay at the bottom. It’s hard to start a “career” when the work that is available is too often simply a “job”.
And middle management at corporations has been hollowed out. Middle managers? They were just a waste of space, right? With automation, you don’t need a team leader for 5 - 10 people. One guy with a snazzy spreadsheet can manage 100 or more people. So, the poor schlubs who start at the bottom don’t have a ladder to the top because the middle is pretty much non-existent.
And the people at the top? They leave their Ivy League school with their brand new MBA and they start at the top. They shift from this company to that company. Always at the top. They sell insurance, then they sell beer, then they manufacturer airplanes. They don’t understand any of it, but that doesn’t matter — they have pull in the right places.
How are young people supposed to earn $100,000 so they can afford a $500,000 house? That deck is very much stacked against them. And who did it to them? We did.
I agree. I’d love to know the average age of a CEO. I bet it’s in the ballpark of 70. Retire please.
Pretty sure a MOBILE HOME & those RV’s are 2 different things.
MY mobile home is on a concrete foundation-—NO WHEELS—and NO ENGINE
I've seen it done with young people in their mid-late 20s who are top-notch workers. I hear stories from these same people about how others their own age, maybe a bit younger, maybe a bit older, who want titles and salary raises just handed to them merely for showing up for work (never mind actual work performance). Companies have been bleeding out workers in their 50s and early 60s for the past two decades. Either the avenues for advancement are there, or they don't exist.
*by bleeding out, I mean laying off or “eliminating” jobs.
A median home would be plausible for someone with a median income.
Much of this problem is caused by the inflation of the money supply by "Bidenomics".
I’m 77, raised two sons alone. Never owned a home, never will. Couldn’t afford one when my kids were young. By the time I could, I didn’t need to own a home. At my age, at least my sons won’t have to get rid of a house neither of them wants when I’m gone. One less thing for them to deal with. I don’t own a car, but lease. Much easier to get rid of after the person dies. Don’t even have any pets anymore for the same reason.
I think a case can be made that the “elimination” of jobs that you cite are largely middle management. Lots of people in their 50s and 60s who rose up a level or two and maybe got a six-figure salary. Then the company decides that they are old and slow and expensive. BOOM! Middle management is gone and your job is eliminated. As you indicate — this has happened a lot in the past few decades.
So what is left? A lot of hopeless people at the bottom, and a few mega-rich people at the top. There is mostly a gulf between the two. The people at the bottom see no path to the top.
And note — I’m not claiming that no hard-working young person has managed to be promoted in the past 20 years. Sure, that happens. Someone always has a story of a nephew who has done well. And that’s great. But no way is this as common as it used to be. Working hard used to almost always guarantee success in America. This really is no longer true.
Frankly when people just stop working because it isn’t worth the effort, then it is clear they aren’t paid what they earn. For low-skill workers in particular, the effort just isn’t worth it; they end up in the same neighborhoods/housing/schools as people who don’t work at all (they’re just a bit more tired).
I don’t support increasing the minimum wage; just pointing out the obvious; the only way to force them back into their peasant labors is to remove the freebies (which nobody will do because they’ll then show up and take by force - as they’ve been doing in the worst areas for years now). Our elites understand the murderous revolutions in France and Russia were driven by hungry, desperate people, so instead we house and feed them on welfare reservations (to the point they have a diabetes epidemic).
The whole bemoaning of dropping college enrollment is driven by two big factors: Women unable to find “suitable” mates (wallets), and the lack of (college) debt slavery that would normally compel younger people to work. Young people without families/bills(including loans) are not compliant serfs to be worked 24/7; hence the furious pace of replacing them with open borders. The NY governor said the quiet part out loud in August 2023: “Let them get the work authorizations; let them work; legally, let them work.”
Only desperate Thirdworlders see buying a piece of America (a share in a massive IOU bolstered by entitlements) as a deal; many of our own young people have checked out.
You are probably correct!
In Massachusetts, the median salary is $86,840.
And the median home price is $596,000.
Do the math on that and show me how it works.
Wealth creation for most people starts with purchase of a home that grows in value over time. A stable place where you can raise a family. That avenue is closed off for a heck of a lot of young people.
I don’t know that older generations destroyed the world for younger people; we are living through the inevitable consequences of globalization. Americans are competing with workers in dire situations around the world, and now due to technology, the skilled foreigners are getting jobs from American companies offshoring them - or trafficking the foreigners here to do them.
If more young people voted in their own economic self-interests, I’d be more sympathetic; in the meantime, if they are convinced its hopeless, expect to see many of the maladies afflicting the inner city permanent underclass move up the economic ladder. Legalizing weed was just one obvious example; they’ll self-medicate themselves into passive acceptance...
CA lost its mind decades ago.
My daughter and her husband bought a brand new house in the northernmost community in WA state a couple of years ago. Set on 20 acres. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. He died recently, so she sold it for more than they paid for it to the first person who looked at it, moved to a delightful house in Spokane just a mile from me, $375K, made money on the deal. Good neighborhood, nice neighbors. Plus, her furniture all fits perfectly, doesn’t have to buy a single thing.
The Boomers had a ready supply of entry-level housing available to them as cities in the largely empty USA expanded out into new suburbs.
Today, communities discourage new entry-level housing because it generates lower tax revenues, lowers property values in existing areas, and can't be developed and sold 'affordably' except in ultra-dense high-rise condominium formats. And local zoning and planning regulations make it a decade-long process for developers just to get a project through to the finish line.
Far easier and more profitable just to throw up another 100 McMansions - everybody is happy with that.
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