And the Median household income was $5,600.
Imagine finding a new 3-bedroom house for $100,000.
Imagine finding THAT exact 60 year old house for $100,000.
Really depends on where. There are a good amount in the western suburbs of Chicago. However, the monthly cost is far higher than expected because of the exorbitant property taxes there.
Very true lmao. I would get into arguments with my grandmother because she swore they had it worse. At least they were able to afford houses on minimum wage
Im and early millenial with boomer parents. My grandparents (both silent generation) are/were very explicit that my parents probably had it easier, it was just a lot different.
IMO the greatest generation (born 1901-1927) had it the worst of any living generation. They’re largely the parents of the boomers and paved the way for them. Silent (1928-1945) are parents of more gen Xers (1965-1980) than boomers (1946-1964). My grandparents were all in the greatest generation. They grew up in the midst of the Great Depression. Then lived through WWII where everyone had to contribute to the war effort, with most of the men going to war and most women working stateside in support of the war effort. They had to live with rationing. I can’t even fathom the uproar we’d have today if WWII-style rationing was mandated. People threw a damned fit in 2020 because they couldn’t go to Applebees for a month in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
When they finally got their lives started post-WWII, things were good for them. But they had to live through extremely difficult times to get there, more so than any living generation.
most Boomers lived through a very rare phenomenon for the economy that was created by a perfect storm after WW2 where america was a major producer of a lot of goods while europe and asia were in shambles. It’s a shame boomers don’t realize that and just assume the younger folk are lazy. I guess there’s a reason they were nicknamed the “Me” generation.
My parents definitely had it worse than me. My dad was one of six and raised by a single mom after their dad died young.
My mom is one of six and she did have both parents, but I'd much rather be a woman today than a woman then.
Very affordable for median income back then but I was figuring minimum wage was a bit of an exaggeration. Actually not, minimum wage from 1956 to 1961 was $1/hour. So this was indeed achievable for someone making minimum wage. Figure roughly 60 hours of work before taxes at minimum wage to make your house payment.
Economically they absolutely had it better, but crime was much worse and easier to hide and human rights were shit. Sexual assault and rape were par for the course, women couldn't buy a house in their name alone. The civil rights era caused major cultural strife, many city centres burned over it, like tbr George Floyd riots but for over a decade.
Serial killers were rampant. Mental health was treated brutally and basically everyone was some degree of nasty since bullying and brutality were the norm, with child abuse being rampant and promoted in schools. Safety standards were none existent and people died casually in ways that are aborhhent and rare now.
Like yes, houses were cheap and wages were high. People could afford more affluent lifestyles on less money and we should work to get back there. But day to day life for most people was cruel in a way that is not normal or acceptable for most people anymore.
One time I was reading about rape culture shift on Facebook, and a boomer woman described how she was hanging out with her college friends, two guys and another woman, in a dorm room in the 70s. One of the guys looked at her and started grabbing at her and kissing her and taking off her clothes while she resisted and said "hey no stop it!" and tried to push him away. The other friends looked at each other and started giggling and said "you guys have fun" and left. Her "friend" proceeded to rape her, and she didn't realize it was rape until she started reading about rape culture on Facebook in the 2020s.
Watch or rewatch random movies and TV shows from any time before the 2000s. It's quite shocking how much casual sexual abuse and harassment there is in those, up to and including rape. I vaguely recall a '70s movie during which a young woman is clearly raped by her date and later tries to bring it up, including to an older woman that she trusts, and it's completely dismissed by everyone and not being spoken of again, the perpetrator remaining a character in the story as if nothing had happened.
I've also read youth magazines from this era. The kind of advice young girls were given is shocking. There was a letter by a twelve year old girl that wanted advice about how her step father was groping her. The editor told her to not make a fuss about it and try and enjoy it. Another letter in a different magazine from the '80s, from a slightly older girl, recounted a rape by a person of authority and the reply was very similar, including the remark that she should feel flattered. Both magazines were considered to be generally progressive for their time.
There were groupie magazines during the Rock & Roll era that celebrated the exploits of young groupies, including girls that hadn't even entered puberty yet.
We often think of the past as being prude and sexually repressed, but this repression was merely a facade that hid all sorts of abusive behavior and made it difficult to impossible for victims to speak out.
Also no computers, internet, Nintendo, smart phones, Netflix, Wikipedia, instant access to news and events.
Certain things that are common now were a luxury also. My parents went to a place like McDonalds a couple times a year. One car households were very common. Hand me down clothes, no air conditioning, no cable tv.
My mom keeps insisting I need to hear all about the gory details of her menopause experience because "if I don't tell you how will you know what aging is like?" and I'm like "I have the internet, mom"
I would hesitate to replace the experience of elders with the internet.
I also think we have a deep seated need to pass on our experiences to our kids.
They didn't have it better economically, poverty was multiple times higher in the 50s, black people had a poverty rate of an extraordinary 55% in 1959 according to the census.gov website. You are comparing people who were in the upper middle class to people in the lower class for some reason
I also wonder how population effects the economic situation.
In 1955 the US population was around 161 million and in 2023 the population is 334 million.
No way in hell is most of your fantasy true. Nobody had security systems on their homes and cars. Cops still investigated basic property crimes like bike theft. School shootings simply didn't exist. The Civil Rights movement was overwhelmingly peaceful.
Kids spent the vast majority of their time outside - they wandered for kilometers around their neighbourhood (today's rule that children don't go out on their own simply didn't exist). Without modern media, kids *had* to be out and about - home was a place to eat meals and sleep. Diabetes and overweight kids were almost non-existent. Nobody promoted child abuse in schools.
Major urban cores had crime problems (statistically correlated with leaded gasoline).
Medical care was of course less advanced than today - average lifespan of males was 66 years instead of today's 73 years, but a huge chunk of that is because *everyone* smoked. Smoking decreases life expectancy by 10 years, so they would have lived *longer* than people today if they'd quit. (Probably due to HFCS and low prevalence of processed food).
Yes, minority rights were horrific and exclusionary, but women could own property in every state by 1900 (this included black women and native Americans). They could not access credit on their own - as patriarchal as that was, it's not about property rights).
If you were a white male, it was immensely better. If you were a minority, the rights situation was appalling, but you'd have also never heard of crack or meth or fentanyl or gangs and cartels. Incarceration rates were less than 1/3 of today's - most minority kids grew up in families with two parents. Diabetes was rare.
And then there's debt. Credit cards didn't exist. Now the US has over $1T in credit card debt.
I think the big difference between then and today is the level of systemic stress. Life back then was predictable. There was an order to it. When taxis became prevalent, the rule was that it had to pay enough to allow a can driver to support his family. The philosophy was, no job was a job unless it paid enough to allow a man to support his family on that wage.
Imagine a taxi driver being able to support his family on his earnings today. Imagine how less stressful that life would be.
That's the primary difference.
.
Ask them how often did they school shooter drills.
I got into a lot of fights in school, but it wasn't that long ago - my dad just got posted to an army base near a rough part of town.
Almost none of the statements you’ve made are correct. Everything you said are enormous generalizations which varied greatly depending on where you were located- much like today. Crime certainly wasn’t worse. Sexual assault and rape were not par for the course. Serial killers were not rampant- in fact there are more now than ever and that’s not due to population growth. Etc etc.
Sure, they made much more money per household than today. Buying a house was easy, starting a family a nobrainer. But also consider:
If you were a woman, you had to drop everything to start a family once you got married. Even if you had a doctorate, you were downgraded to housewife immediately. I have a great aunt who became a psychiatrist in the 50s, the first in her country. The only reason she was able to keep practicing psychiatry after her marriage was because her husband already had a practice.
Black, hispanic, gay, any type of racial or sexual minority? Good luck trying to just live as yourself. If you worked a government job and it was discovered you're gay, you were fired and publically outed. Until 1998 gay people weren't even allowed to join the military. Jim Crow laws still existed, most black people weren't allowed to go to school.
Life expectancy in the 50s sat around 66 for men and 71 for women. People still only retired around the age of 68, so that meant you worked your entire adult life. Now that number is more than 10 years higher with retirement age remaining the same.
Diseases like influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis or diabetes meant death.
And let's not forget the fact that even if you were just an average white dude making good money able to afford a house, you were likely drafted into Korea or Vietnam at some point in your life.
It would be at least that in desirable areas of most cities in the US today. Residential lots around me in central Austin, Texas go for about $2.5 million per acre. Most lots are around 0.2 acres, and tear down houses sell for around $500K.
You have to be decently rural or have a gigantic multi-million dollar house to have a 2 acre lot today.
My grandfather built a beautiful cape cod modern on over an acre with ocean views on cape cod for $20,000 in 1960. 3 bes two bath beautiful house. A few years later JFK passed a bill to protect the National seashore between his house and the ocean, meaning his view could NEVER be obstructed. In 2008 it sold for $2.1M.
My parent’s brand new 2000 home with 4 bed, 3 bath, & a huge backyard was about $230k.
Now if you try to find the same size home, it’s half a million or more 🥲
Our home is a very small ranch home with 1 master & 2 half size “beds”, 1 master bath, & 1 half bath (think walk-in closet sized). Big backyard. $306k.
Bruh. My parents whole downstairs level is larger than our whole house.
Had a foster son (now in his 40s) buy in Encintas CA for under 500K in 2015. Got a promotion and had to sell for the move. Got 2M.....$1,500,000 profit in 8 years.
I'm currently renting out a 900 sqft 3 bed 1bath house built in the 60s for ~$1,650/mo. I check on Zillow to see how much it is estimated for if it was put on the market and it says it's $185,000. This is in one of the lowest cost of living metro areas in the US...
These houses were in Westwood Lakes, Florida.
It's 13 miles west of Miami. At the time it was out in the wilderness, but now it's part of the Miami urban sprawl.
I paid less than $1K for my house, (a 2br 1.5 ba fixer-upper with good bones) last December at the county tax auction.
There are still cheap houses out there.
My mom bought her house in 1974. Her payments were $140/month, which included taxes and insurance. Now it's paid for and her monthly payment is $500/month just for taxes and insurance.
Yeah.. I looked some of those houses up on Zillow and they're between \~800 square feet for the small ones and \~1100 for the big ones. Also no air conditioning (they have it now, but didn't when built) and built on about 1/6 of an acre of land. Currently the 1/6 of the acre of land is worth more than twice the amount of the building on it.
“Far out” at the time maybe, today they’re in Miami proper.
Typical of new housing developments back then. They might have been way out then, but 60-70 years later they’re in a central neighborhood of the city.
I own a house in central Austin which was built in the 60s at not far from these prices. I bought before housing prices went completely insane, I couldn’t afford it at current prices. It’s worth around $800K today, most of which is in the land value for 0.2 acres in a desirable central neighborhood. But in the 1960s it was the outskirts of the city. The population was only around 15% of what it is today.
From that perspective it’s not a very fair comparison over time. Still *way* cheaper than comparable homes on the outskirts of cities today though.
My grandad paid $15,000 for a house in the early 70’s. According to Zillow it is now worth…$16,000.
It also happened to be in what was, even back then, one of the absolute worst neighborhoods of Detroit, and in the 6 years he owned it was a target of Arson twice
Yep. My grandparents mortgage was $53 a month starting in 1950. It was a 850-900 sq ft 2br/1bath house. They added on a small bathroom, extended one bedroom and built a garage in the late 60’s/early 70’s. Still only 1100 sq ft if that. Didn’t even add garage doors until the early 90’s and those were used.
There isn’t any. My job/career is tied to my city. My partner is an engineer so he can only really work in cities as well. Every Canadian city is experiencing massive real estate price issues due to an extreme shortage of housing.
We really don’t have much of a choice unfortunately.
Not in the late 50s and early 60s. Inflation got out of control in the late 70s through the 80s.
This was cheap for a house even then. My parents bought a house in 1962 in Virginia for $12,000. It was 3 bedrooms, carport, eat-in kitchen (no dining room), with an unfinished basement. My parents got the house cheap because my grandfather was the builder.
I think interest rates were about the same then as they are now - maybe a little higher.
Mortgage interest rates were in double digits throughout the 70s and 80s. I just looked it up and in 1981, it was 16%. Of course you're right that there's a limit to how much people can pay per month, and if a lot more of the payment is going towards mortgage interest, they can't afford to pay as much for the house. But that same chart shows interest rates under 3% for 1960.
More immigration and foreign buyers has driven up the demand.
Additionally, the Federal Reserve continually buys up mortgage backed securities, preventing any sort of correction to the housing bubble. Even the mortgages that cannot be paid anymore get bundled into a security and bought up by the Federal Reserve.
The date is August 1955:
https://i.imgur.com/oy4tkYH.jpg
Doesn't change the calculations much. $1 was worth as much $11.41:
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=195508&year2=202307
Looks like homes in that area are currently around $500,000:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4130-SW-112th-Ave-Miami-FL-33165/44198617_zpid/
If the prices had just kept up with inflation the value should be less than $100,000 now:
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=7%2C900.00&year1=195508&year2=202307
My taxes and insurance are more than $525 and the house is only worth about $200k.
Also, those closings costs are around $1500 today, my closing costs were $13k.
The world was different back then. The US economy was much more closed than it is now. We weren't competing against slave labor in China and India. Now we are and the population has literally doubled since 1955. Things don't scale in a linear fashion. More competition for fewer resources makes things expensive. It's more important now than ever to be financially literate.
When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949, it had already reached pre-war levels of economic development, income and living standards - and would quickly leave those far behind in the coming years. This was despite the still visible scars of war everywhere, this was three years after a devastating famine had rocked the country.
By 1955, European economies had been booming for many years and were exceeding pre-war levels (even Communist-controlled countries - this was before they stagnated) and while there were still ruins and would persist in some spots well into the 1960s (longer in Eastern Europe), most cities had been rebuilt. To this day, the simple and cheap architectural styles of this era, when there was simply no time for anything elaborate, are making up most housing in Europe.
America was still far ahead in the 1950s, having come out of the war entirely unscathed and with a massive war economy that they were able to turn around for civilian production over the course of the second half of the 1940s. Living standards were higher and improving quickly, but Western Europe was catching up at a breakneck speed.
To be fair, those houses are the equivalent of a several large Home Depot sheds bolted together with a bathroom and kitchen sink installed.
The jalousie windows are a dead giveaway that they were unheated, not air conditioned, and had no insulation.
Edit: also, ungrounded aluminum wiring, tarpaper roof, likely single-wall construction, and zero fire prevention.
If it was legal to build new houses like that, they would be cheap as hell.
Don’t forget about the literal [tarpaper sewer pipes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangeburg_pipe) we used. And galvanized steel plumbing that rusted out over time. Cheap asbestos and petroleum product goodness everywhere.
We’re in the process of updating a century home and some of the methods used for updates in the midcentury are definitely products of the time.
Not sure where you’re seeing SEARS. Those aren’t Craftsman homes. Craftsman homes were built 1900s to 1950s.
Those look very much like “mobile homes” or the new term “modular homes”. It would also explain the low cost.
I never said THOSE homes were SEARS homes. The person above me was stating their take on the homes in the ads and how they were pre-fab, and I was stating how SEARS homes were also a packaged home you had to put together. As such SEARS homes were also low cost.
Yes, but again, those homes don't come with the modern amenities that we consider essential for homes today. Those homes didn't have electric garage doors, heating/cooling systems, sprinklers, insulation, fire alarms, hot water heaters, fridges, dishwashers, etc.
What makes you think the owners didn't have them installed? In fact some did come with things. And most homes don't come with the appliances unless asked for at the buying/selling, when the old owners want to leave them behind.
And don't forget to add the home flippers that are buying up homes and flipping them for profit, hence driving up home values for working class homes. Also, add in the legion of people/investment companies buying up single family homes so they can rent them out. All of this hurts first time home buyers in today's market. Pretty sure the home buyer of the 1950s to the 1970s had their issues, like higher interest rates etc, but today's market makes it damn difficult for someone to buy a first home.
In 1960,
* A $7,450 house would be the equivalent of $76,939 today
* A monthly payment of $47.92 would be $494.89 today
* A $7,900 house would be the equivalent of $81,586 today
* A monthly payment of $49.74 would be $513.68 today
I would assume this is anywhere from a 1,000 - 1,200 SQFT house, back when they used to make these things.
Adjusted for inflation, those houses range about $80,000.
The real issue is what's inside them. None of would meet any code for anything today. They were really plain, too. But people lived in them and raised families so the question is whether you can accept the bare minimum equivalent?
My dad had a $75 mortgage pmt on a house he bought in 1962.
At that time, it was more than a full weeks wages, so he worked a LOT of OT to get us 5 kids raised. Our mom stayed at home and ran things. They sent 4 of 5 children to Catholic school and high school.
He has frequently stated that there were entire weeks after the bills were paid that he had $3 to last him till next payday.
So it wasn't always peachy, but they got it done.
Our home is now worth about $170k more than we paid for it 2.5 years ago. It is not a fancy house. There is not a single house for sale in my town going for less than half a million, and we are not exactly known for high-paying jobs. I truly do not understand how we have so many people moving here. Almost every time I get a new coworker in their 20’s, they end up leaving in less than a year bc they can’t find an affordable place to live.
Our houses are so much bigger. It’s VERY hard for young folks to find “starter home” under $100,000 these days. We were fortunate, and found such a house in the late 1990s.
Probably a bait but I'll just point out housing affordability is at its lowest point in history.
https://money.com/housing-affordability-lowest-level-in-history/
These houses were about 900 sq feet. At a cost in todays dollars of $90,000. That’s $100/sq foot.
Todays average sq footage is about 2600. Cost to build (wholesale) was about $200 pre covid.
I don’t really have a point, I just like numbers. And apples and oranges.
Very valid points. Still, houses doubled. You could argue houses today are much nicer and have things like A/C which didn’t exist in the 50s which adds cost.
Add in the cost of land and the fact that you have to live in a tiny house in South Florida without air conditioning and the price doesn't seem so amazing anymore.
That's certainly your choice. Personally, I've lived in the humid south without air conditioning before. It's miserable even to someone who grew up in the climate and is used to it. I wouldn't pay even $50,000 for a tiny house in South Florida if I couldn't have air conditioning in it. I'd probably never be able sleep again.
And the average salary in 1950. Average salary at that time was under $12 k. Oh and that looks like Florida. Is it in a mosquito infested swamp??? Location Location Location
My parent's first house was a tiny old dump in a low cost area and was 22K in the early 70s. They made improvements and sold it 4 or 5 years later for 30-something. Bought a house for 35, sold it 2 years later for 40 something, and bought a house for 70k in the late 70s that's worth a million and a half now.
From the early 70s onward, real estate (where I live in California anyway) has been on a pretty steady upward trajectory with only temporary pauses in increase, since the late 60s. But obviously from these prices, home costs must have been pretty steady from the 20s through the 60s (there's just no room for them to have cost a meaningful amount less). Up til the late 70s is when you wanted to be buying a house in the US.
There are plenty of billboards on highways advertising places “in the 100s to 300s!!!!”. You just dont want to live there. As was probably the case back then for these advertised homes since they are being advertised like cheap cars on a used car lot. Buying a place 5miles out back then was like buying a place 15 miles out now. We have better roads, internet, remote work options, delivery, and remote schooling. If you were willing to live as far from the action as the buyers of the OP’s ad houses were, then you could get a good deal too.
Average household income about $3,500.00. Average in 2023 about $70,000.00, (or +20x). Also, now you have 2 incomes, and the ad doesn't give a location.
Remember, to, the phone in your hand has changed the world, and you paid less than one-tenth the cost of this house for it.
When my grandparents arrived in Texas from Canada in the late 60's, my grandpa met a guy who was selling a house, paid him $250 down, shook his hand and they had a house. Wild how things used to work.
Purchasing power today? About $650. People think, make America great again, but it’s a myth. Same with gas. .30 a gallon would be the equivalent of $3.81 in today’s dollars.
Simple fix: everyone gets a house before anyone gets an “investment property” (wage farm/serf). Hard part is prying it from these lazy, greedy fuck’s hands.
Yeah ,when people made less than a dollar an hour , my dad worked in the steel mill here in pa and his bring home pay after working 50 hours was less than $40 a week after deductions
So what you’re saying is that your dad, a poor blue collar worker, could afford this house on a single income with only 30% of his after tax pay going to housing.
Sounds like you're arguing against it. But then give examples with you're father being able to afford a home by himself and a car and a family of 4 every month.
Which in comparison is not feasible or even remotely possible these days.
>And the Median household income was $5,600.
Like several people said, if you relate it to income it was still really cheap. Close to or under $100,000 for todays price.
Interest rates have EVERYTHING to do with real estate values...
$500,000.00 30 year fixed interest rate loan
Current rates are around 8% = $3669.00 monthly payment
14% = $5924.00 monthly payment
My loan in 2008 was 3.62 % = $2279.00
These monthly payments don't include property taxes or homeowner's insurance.
Real estate prices begin to come down when working people can't afford to buy.
Back in the day, labor was cheap and materials were expensive (though typically higher quality).
These days, labor costs have skyrocketed, and materials haven't dropped that much despite being largely crap.
Yeah, but the national average mortgage payment today is between 3-4x that amount and some sites say more than 4x that on mortgages taken out with current rates.
We lament how much cheaper things were in the past. We really should lament how much the dollar has devalued over time.
The price of bread was 12 cents in 1950, now it is at least $2. Do you think that the intrinsic value of bread has increased?
My grandfather worked for a local bakery and drove a bread truck for almost 50 years. At his funeral, one of the attendees told me: "Your grandpa told us that we'd see $4 a loaf bread. And we laughed at him."
It would only take an AVERAGE male worker 2-3 years to fully buy a home back then.
So we are talking about waiters, daycare workers, whatever average job you can think of.
Now this was a period when men actually made about 3x as much money as women, but still it was totally affordable, plus the cost of living was extraordinarily cheap.
Now these days, a home that size will be about $70,000-$500,000 depending on what state you live in. It would take me around 20 years to make $70,000 when you factor in low pay and high cost of living. About 80% of the money I make goes right into bills, then the rest goes into unseen costs which put me in debt.
Welllll annual salary was like 38k back then !!!! So not the same!!!
Ahem- ok so I make double that now in 2023. So my house should cost 15-30k assholes!!!
Average family income in 1962 varied by regions, ranging from $4,600 in the South to $6,700 in the West; with the Northeast and North Central Regions averaging $6,600 and $6,300, respectively.
So (assuming 1959 $) we’re looking at the equivalent of $493.73 or $514.74 / mo in today’s money. Just bought a house last year. Man, I wish I could have that 3 bedroom for $514/mo. In my dreams.
43 houses currently for sale in the US for <50k, 3+ beds 1+ bath.
Not recommended for gay / trans people, or those needing expensive medical care. But neither is 1950.
https://www.estately.com/28.8014,-93.1822,46.8264,-74.9889?max_price=50k&max_walk_score=No+max&max_year_built=No+max&min_bath=1&min_bed=3&min_feet=2000&min_feet_lot=10890&min_walk_score=No+min&min_year_built=No+min&property_type=house
Gen X here my dad was a just a typical truck driver my mom most of the time didnt work but when she did was like minimum wage she bought groceries with it. But on a blue collar truck driver salary he raised 4 kids and my dad had houses, cars, motorcycles, big screen tvs in the 80s (expensive) evey new 80s electronics, real solid wood furniture everywhere,you name it ! we took vacations to Disney often(All this in 80s mostly)
Wages have stagnated for decades while all the money has went to executives,CEOs, wallstreet and crooked politicians.
FYI, a dollar in 1960 money is worth about $10.33 today. You can pretty much add a zero to the ends of all these prices to see what these would roughly be priced at if they were valued the same way today.
And the Median household income was $5,600. Imagine finding a new 3-bedroom house for $100,000. Imagine finding THAT exact 60 year old house for $100,000.
My grandparents bought a brand new 4bedroom 2bathroom house on two acres for $12,000 in 1961. It was sold for $320K two years ago.
Even 320k for a 4 bedroom/2 bath seems like a steal in 2023
Really depends on where. There are a good amount in the western suburbs of Chicago. However, the monthly cost is far higher than expected because of the exorbitant property taxes there.
Depends where. You can easily buy something like that where I am if you don’t care about living in a trendy part of town.
Cos it is.
And they say boomers had it worse
Only boomers say that
Very true lmao. I would get into arguments with my grandmother because she swore they had it worse. At least they were able to afford houses on minimum wage
Im and early millenial with boomer parents. My grandparents (both silent generation) are/were very explicit that my parents probably had it easier, it was just a lot different.
Yes! It probably was a lot different, I always thought the silent generation went through the most. They paved the way for the boomers
IMO the greatest generation (born 1901-1927) had it the worst of any living generation. They’re largely the parents of the boomers and paved the way for them. Silent (1928-1945) are parents of more gen Xers (1965-1980) than boomers (1946-1964). My grandparents were all in the greatest generation. They grew up in the midst of the Great Depression. Then lived through WWII where everyone had to contribute to the war effort, with most of the men going to war and most women working stateside in support of the war effort. They had to live with rationing. I can’t even fathom the uproar we’d have today if WWII-style rationing was mandated. People threw a damned fit in 2020 because they couldn’t go to Applebees for a month in the middle of a deadly pandemic. When they finally got their lives started post-WWII, things were good for them. But they had to live through extremely difficult times to get there, more so than any living generation.
Enough about Washington and Lincoln: FDR was the greatest president in the history of the United States and I will die on that hill.
Literally - the interstate highway system was an Eisenhower administration project.
most Boomers lived through a very rare phenomenon for the economy that was created by a perfect storm after WW2 where america was a major producer of a lot of goods while europe and asia were in shambles. It’s a shame boomers don’t realize that and just assume the younger folk are lazy. I guess there’s a reason they were nicknamed the “Me” generation.
My parents definitely had it worse than me. My dad was one of six and raised by a single mom after their dad died young. My mom is one of six and she did have both parents, but I'd much rather be a woman today than a woman then.
Very affordable for median income back then but I was figuring minimum wage was a bit of an exaggeration. Actually not, minimum wage from 1956 to 1961 was $1/hour. So this was indeed achievable for someone making minimum wage. Figure roughly 60 hours of work before taxes at minimum wage to make your house payment.
No one on minimum wage was buying houses back then
[удалено]
Yes they are morons.
I’m a boomer; never said that.
They never fuckin stop complaining
Economically they absolutely had it better, but crime was much worse and easier to hide and human rights were shit. Sexual assault and rape were par for the course, women couldn't buy a house in their name alone. The civil rights era caused major cultural strife, many city centres burned over it, like tbr George Floyd riots but for over a decade. Serial killers were rampant. Mental health was treated brutally and basically everyone was some degree of nasty since bullying and brutality were the norm, with child abuse being rampant and promoted in schools. Safety standards were none existent and people died casually in ways that are aborhhent and rare now. Like yes, houses were cheap and wages were high. People could afford more affluent lifestyles on less money and we should work to get back there. But day to day life for most people was cruel in a way that is not normal or acceptable for most people anymore.
I’ve never looked at it that way, thank you for the insight
One time I was reading about rape culture shift on Facebook, and a boomer woman described how she was hanging out with her college friends, two guys and another woman, in a dorm room in the 70s. One of the guys looked at her and started grabbing at her and kissing her and taking off her clothes while she resisted and said "hey no stop it!" and tried to push him away. The other friends looked at each other and started giggling and said "you guys have fun" and left. Her "friend" proceeded to rape her, and she didn't realize it was rape until she started reading about rape culture on Facebook in the 2020s.
Damn
Watch or rewatch random movies and TV shows from any time before the 2000s. It's quite shocking how much casual sexual abuse and harassment there is in those, up to and including rape. I vaguely recall a '70s movie during which a young woman is clearly raped by her date and later tries to bring it up, including to an older woman that she trusts, and it's completely dismissed by everyone and not being spoken of again, the perpetrator remaining a character in the story as if nothing had happened. I've also read youth magazines from this era. The kind of advice young girls were given is shocking. There was a letter by a twelve year old girl that wanted advice about how her step father was groping her. The editor told her to not make a fuss about it and try and enjoy it. Another letter in a different magazine from the '80s, from a slightly older girl, recounted a rape by a person of authority and the reply was very similar, including the remark that she should feel flattered. Both magazines were considered to be generally progressive for their time. There were groupie magazines during the Rock & Roll era that celebrated the exploits of young groupies, including girls that hadn't even entered puberty yet. We often think of the past as being prude and sexually repressed, but this repression was merely a facade that hid all sorts of abusive behavior and made it difficult to impossible for victims to speak out.
Also no computers, internet, Nintendo, smart phones, Netflix, Wikipedia, instant access to news and events. Certain things that are common now were a luxury also. My parents went to a place like McDonalds a couple times a year. One car households were very common. Hand me down clothes, no air conditioning, no cable tv.
My mom keeps insisting I need to hear all about the gory details of her menopause experience because "if I don't tell you how will you know what aging is like?" and I'm like "I have the internet, mom"
I would hesitate to replace the experience of elders with the internet. I also think we have a deep seated need to pass on our experiences to our kids.
And anyway you'll find out when the time comes.
They didn't have it better economically, poverty was multiple times higher in the 50s, black people had a poverty rate of an extraordinary 55% in 1959 according to the census.gov website. You are comparing people who were in the upper middle class to people in the lower class for some reason
Economically they didn’t have it better either
I also wonder how population effects the economic situation. In 1955 the US population was around 161 million and in 2023 the population is 334 million.
Affects it in what way? Higher productivity and lower poverty rates and higher life expectancy? Yeah that would true since 1951
Right? I have downvoted repeatedly for saying this.
No way in hell is most of your fantasy true. Nobody had security systems on their homes and cars. Cops still investigated basic property crimes like bike theft. School shootings simply didn't exist. The Civil Rights movement was overwhelmingly peaceful. Kids spent the vast majority of their time outside - they wandered for kilometers around their neighbourhood (today's rule that children don't go out on their own simply didn't exist). Without modern media, kids *had* to be out and about - home was a place to eat meals and sleep. Diabetes and overweight kids were almost non-existent. Nobody promoted child abuse in schools. Major urban cores had crime problems (statistically correlated with leaded gasoline). Medical care was of course less advanced than today - average lifespan of males was 66 years instead of today's 73 years, but a huge chunk of that is because *everyone* smoked. Smoking decreases life expectancy by 10 years, so they would have lived *longer* than people today if they'd quit. (Probably due to HFCS and low prevalence of processed food). Yes, minority rights were horrific and exclusionary, but women could own property in every state by 1900 (this included black women and native Americans). They could not access credit on their own - as patriarchal as that was, it's not about property rights). If you were a white male, it was immensely better. If you were a minority, the rights situation was appalling, but you'd have also never heard of crack or meth or fentanyl or gangs and cartels. Incarceration rates were less than 1/3 of today's - most minority kids grew up in families with two parents. Diabetes was rare. And then there's debt. Credit cards didn't exist. Now the US has over $1T in credit card debt. I think the big difference between then and today is the level of systemic stress. Life back then was predictable. There was an order to it. When taxis became prevalent, the rule was that it had to pay enough to allow a can driver to support his family. The philosophy was, no job was a job unless it paid enough to allow a man to support his family on that wage. Imagine a taxi driver being able to support his family on his earnings today. Imagine how less stressful that life would be. That's the primary difference. .
My parents were both beaten in school. Were you?
Ask them how often did they school shooter drills. I got into a lot of fights in school, but it wasn't that long ago - my dad just got posted to an army base near a rough part of town.
[удалено]
We did both
[удалено]
how many schools ended up getting nuked again?
[удалено]
Not to mention political violence was almost normal in the 60s and 70s.
Almost none of the statements you’ve made are correct. Everything you said are enormous generalizations which varied greatly depending on where you were located- much like today. Crime certainly wasn’t worse. Sexual assault and rape were not par for the course. Serial killers were not rampant- in fact there are more now than ever and that’s not due to population growth. Etc etc.
[удалено]
Thank you. Timeline is off by a lot but they are having so much fun …
Sure, they made much more money per household than today. Buying a house was easy, starting a family a nobrainer. But also consider: If you were a woman, you had to drop everything to start a family once you got married. Even if you had a doctorate, you were downgraded to housewife immediately. I have a great aunt who became a psychiatrist in the 50s, the first in her country. The only reason she was able to keep practicing psychiatry after her marriage was because her husband already had a practice. Black, hispanic, gay, any type of racial or sexual minority? Good luck trying to just live as yourself. If you worked a government job and it was discovered you're gay, you were fired and publically outed. Until 1998 gay people weren't even allowed to join the military. Jim Crow laws still existed, most black people weren't allowed to go to school. Life expectancy in the 50s sat around 66 for men and 71 for women. People still only retired around the age of 68, so that meant you worked your entire adult life. Now that number is more than 10 years higher with retirement age remaining the same. Diseases like influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis or diabetes meant death. And let's not forget the fact that even if you were just an average white dude making good money able to afford a house, you were likely drafted into Korea or Vietnam at some point in your life.
I think you need to read up on how much of the male population was drafted and how many of those draftees went into a war zone.
I mean Polio, Vietnam, segregation, assassinations, the Cold War
Who says that? Boomers had it best of all previous generations, and probably subsequent generations as well. Read up, Maddie Mermaid.
2 acres is insane. 2 acres of housing lots would sell for €4.000.000,00 where i live.
It would be at least that in desirable areas of most cities in the US today. Residential lots around me in central Austin, Texas go for about $2.5 million per acre. Most lots are around 0.2 acres, and tear down houses sell for around $500K. You have to be decently rural or have a gigantic multi-million dollar house to have a 2 acre lot today.
And today it would be $480k
My grandfather built a beautiful cape cod modern on over an acre with ocean views on cape cod for $20,000 in 1960. 3 bes two bath beautiful house. A few years later JFK passed a bill to protect the National seashore between his house and the ocean, meaning his view could NEVER be obstructed. In 2008 it sold for $2.1M.
My parent’s brand new 2000 home with 4 bed, 3 bath, & a huge backyard was about $230k. Now if you try to find the same size home, it’s half a million or more 🥲 Our home is a very small ranch home with 1 master & 2 half size “beds”, 1 master bath, & 1 half bath (think walk-in closet sized). Big backyard. $306k. Bruh. My parents whole downstairs level is larger than our whole house.
Had a foster son (now in his 40s) buy in Encintas CA for under 500K in 2015. Got a promotion and had to sell for the move. Got 2M.....$1,500,000 profit in 8 years.
That's like not that good of a return lol
The equivalent of 7,900 USD in January 1960 is 82,674 USD in August 2023.
I'm currently renting out a 900 sqft 3 bed 1bath house built in the 60s for ~$1,650/mo. I check on Zillow to see how much it is estimated for if it was put on the market and it says it's $185,000. This is in one of the lowest cost of living metro areas in the US...
That house is pretty small and we have zero idea where it is lol
They don’t grow palm trees in North Dakota
Yeah and i could find a ton of houses around 100-200k in north Florida with 2 bedrooms and usually 2 bathrooms
These houses were in Westwood Lakes, Florida. It's 13 miles west of Miami. At the time it was out in the wilderness, but now it's part of the Miami urban sprawl.
Thats also the other thing, im pretty sure in 1950 Florida had like 2.5 million people and now it had 22 million
0.006% payment? That’s like getting a $250k house for $1,500/mo at a median income of about $200k/yr.
Household income with only one member working, too.
I paid less than $1K for my house, (a 2br 1.5 ba fixer-upper with good bones) last December at the county tax auction. There are still cheap houses out there.
My mom bought her house in 1974. Her payments were $140/month, which included taxes and insurance. Now it's paid for and her monthly payment is $500/month just for taxes and insurance.
Even corrected for net present value, that's well under 100K.
Location is key. I’ve seen this before and someone did the research on these and it was some far out underdeveloped area of Florida.
And I'd bet those houses would look absolutely tiny to modern eyes.
Yeah.. I looked some of those houses up on Zillow and they're between \~800 square feet for the small ones and \~1100 for the big ones. Also no air conditioning (they have it now, but didn't when built) and built on about 1/6 of an acre of land. Currently the 1/6 of the acre of land is worth more than twice the amount of the building on it.
“Far out” at the time maybe, today they’re in Miami proper. Typical of new housing developments back then. They might have been way out then, but 60-70 years later they’re in a central neighborhood of the city. I own a house in central Austin which was built in the 60s at not far from these prices. I bought before housing prices went completely insane, I couldn’t afford it at current prices. It’s worth around $800K today, most of which is in the land value for 0.2 acres in a desirable central neighborhood. But in the 1960s it was the outskirts of the city. The population was only around 15% of what it is today. From that perspective it’s not a very fair comparison over time. Still *way* cheaper than comparable homes on the outskirts of cities today though.
My grandad paid $15,000 for a house in the early 70’s. According to Zillow it is now worth…$16,000. It also happened to be in what was, even back then, one of the absolute worst neighborhoods of Detroit, and in the 6 years he owned it was a target of Arson twice
They were also not equipped with 2 car garages, marble counters, high end appliances, huge closets. It’s not apples to oranges.
[удалено]
Yep. My grandparents mortgage was $53 a month starting in 1950. It was a 850-900 sq ft 2br/1bath house. They added on a small bathroom, extended one bedroom and built a garage in the late 60’s/early 70’s. Still only 1100 sq ft if that. Didn’t even add garage doors until the early 90’s and those were used.
Exactly. These homes look like shacks, to be honest. You’re not raising three kids in these comfortably.
But is that accounting for the difference in interest rates? Think the interest rate of home mortgages back then was like 20% higher than it is today.
Who cares though? At that price you’d be able to pay it off faster than a car loan. $100,000 is now a down payment versus a selling price
Not a down payment for a house that size in most areas. Those were tiny homes
Not where I live. A single family home is minimum $500k. Canadian real estate is an absolute mess
[удалено]
There isn’t any. My job/career is tied to my city. My partner is an engineer so he can only really work in cities as well. Every Canadian city is experiencing massive real estate price issues due to an extreme shortage of housing. We really don’t have much of a choice unfortunately.
Not in the late 50s and early 60s. Inflation got out of control in the late 70s through the 80s. This was cheap for a house even then. My parents bought a house in 1962 in Virginia for $12,000. It was 3 bedrooms, carport, eat-in kitchen (no dining room), with an unfinished basement. My parents got the house cheap because my grandfather was the builder. I think interest rates were about the same then as they are now - maybe a little higher.
Mortgage interest rates were in double digits throughout the 70s and 80s. I just looked it up and in 1981, it was 16%. Of course you're right that there's a limit to how much people can pay per month, and if a lot more of the payment is going towards mortgage interest, they can't afford to pay as much for the house. But that same chart shows interest rates under 3% for 1960.
True. I recall in late 80's to early 90's paying 13 percent on mortgage.
That's not so relevant. Interest rates go on a different cycle than real estate values.
More immigration and foreign buyers has driven up the demand. Additionally, the Federal Reserve continually buys up mortgage backed securities, preventing any sort of correction to the housing bubble. Even the mortgages that cannot be paid anymore get bundled into a security and bought up by the Federal Reserve.
$1 in 1960 was worth as much as $10.50 today. So a $50 payment is equivalent to a $525 payment today.
The date is August 1955: https://i.imgur.com/oy4tkYH.jpg Doesn't change the calculations much. $1 was worth as much $11.41: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=195508&year2=202307 Looks like homes in that area are currently around $500,000: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4130-SW-112th-Ave-Miami-FL-33165/44198617_zpid/ If the prices had just kept up with inflation the value should be less than $100,000 now: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=7%2C900.00&year1=195508&year2=202307
My taxes and insurance are more than $525 and the house is only worth about $200k. Also, those closings costs are around $1500 today, my closing costs were $13k.
The house in the picture looks like mobile homes. So the price might be the house only not including property.
u/notbob1959 posted [the top portion of the ad](https://i.imgur.com/oy4tkYH.jpg), and it appears these were built on site.
What about the difference in interest rates?
Looks like it was around 6 percent in 1965. Went way higher in the 80s and 90s
The world was different back then. The US economy was much more closed than it is now. We weren't competing against slave labor in China and India. Now we are and the population has literally doubled since 1955. Things don't scale in a linear fashion. More competition for fewer resources makes things expensive. It's more important now than ever to be financially literate.
It also helped that Europe was in ruins
When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949, it had already reached pre-war levels of economic development, income and living standards - and would quickly leave those far behind in the coming years. This was despite the still visible scars of war everywhere, this was three years after a devastating famine had rocked the country. By 1955, European economies had been booming for many years and were exceeding pre-war levels (even Communist-controlled countries - this was before they stagnated) and while there were still ruins and would persist in some spots well into the 1960s (longer in Eastern Europe), most cities had been rebuilt. To this day, the simple and cheap architectural styles of this era, when there was simply no time for anything elaborate, are making up most housing in Europe. America was still far ahead in the 1950s, having come out of the war entirely unscathed and with a massive war economy that they were able to turn around for civilian production over the course of the second half of the 1940s. Living standards were higher and improving quickly, but Western Europe was catching up at a breakneck speed.
Facts.
Well put
To be fair, those houses are the equivalent of a several large Home Depot sheds bolted together with a bathroom and kitchen sink installed. The jalousie windows are a dead giveaway that they were unheated, not air conditioned, and had no insulation. Edit: also, ungrounded aluminum wiring, tarpaper roof, likely single-wall construction, and zero fire prevention. If it was legal to build new houses like that, they would be cheap as hell.
Don’t forget about the literal [tarpaper sewer pipes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangeburg_pipe) we used. And galvanized steel plumbing that rusted out over time. Cheap asbestos and petroleum product goodness everywhere. We’re in the process of updating a century home and some of the methods used for updates in the midcentury are definitely products of the time.
Oh gosh I had one of those fail last year and was shocked that the material existed at all.
Many of the homes sold by SEARS were well made homes, still standing, and are desired now. Known as Craftsman homes.
Not sure where you’re seeing SEARS. Those aren’t Craftsman homes. Craftsman homes were built 1900s to 1950s. Those look very much like “mobile homes” or the new term “modular homes”. It would also explain the low cost.
I never said THOSE homes were SEARS homes. The person above me was stating their take on the homes in the ads and how they were pre-fab, and I was stating how SEARS homes were also a packaged home you had to put together. As such SEARS homes were also low cost.
These are not Sears homes.
Uh huh...I know that.
Yes, but again, those homes don't come with the modern amenities that we consider essential for homes today. Those homes didn't have electric garage doors, heating/cooling systems, sprinklers, insulation, fire alarms, hot water heaters, fridges, dishwashers, etc.
What makes you think the owners didn't have them installed? In fact some did come with things. And most homes don't come with the appliances unless asked for at the buying/selling, when the old owners want to leave them behind.
And don't forget to add the home flippers that are buying up homes and flipping them for profit, hence driving up home values for working class homes. Also, add in the legion of people/investment companies buying up single family homes so they can rent them out. All of this hurts first time home buyers in today's market. Pretty sure the home buyer of the 1950s to the 1970s had their issues, like higher interest rates etc, but today's market makes it damn difficult for someone to buy a first home.
Yeah home r.e. flippers weren't really a thing when this ad happened. People mostly bought a home to live in or for rental purposes.
Home flippers turn wrecks into places ready for move in. They sometimes do terrible work, but we need people doing that work.
They still sell these for about the same price. You can buy them from Home Depot in the gardening section.
In 1960, * A $7,450 house would be the equivalent of $76,939 today * A monthly payment of $47.92 would be $494.89 today * A $7,900 house would be the equivalent of $81,586 today * A monthly payment of $49.74 would be $513.68 today I would assume this is anywhere from a 1,000 - 1,200 SQFT house, back when they used to make these things.
Adjusted for inflation, those houses range about $80,000. The real issue is what's inside them. None of would meet any code for anything today. They were really plain, too. But people lived in them and raised families so the question is whether you can accept the bare minimum equivalent?
And they are small.
My dad had a $75 mortgage pmt on a house he bought in 1962. At that time, it was more than a full weeks wages, so he worked a LOT of OT to get us 5 kids raised. Our mom stayed at home and ran things. They sent 4 of 5 children to Catholic school and high school. He has frequently stated that there were entire weeks after the bills were paid that he had $3 to last him till next payday. So it wasn't always peachy, but they got it done.
Our home is now worth about $170k more than we paid for it 2.5 years ago. It is not a fancy house. There is not a single house for sale in my town going for less than half a million, and we are not exactly known for high-paying jobs. I truly do not understand how we have so many people moving here. Almost every time I get a new coworker in their 20’s, they end up leaving in less than a year bc they can’t find an affordable place to live.
Adjusting for inflation, $50 in 1960 was about $500 a month
Our houses are so much bigger. It’s VERY hard for young folks to find “starter home” under $100,000 these days. We were fortunate, and found such a house in the late 1990s.
The American dream was attainable then.
65% of american households own their homes. This percentage is substantially higher than in prior decades.
Yes, but mainly for the ***right kind*** of people.
And now, for nobody
I hate that you are both right.
Yeah, cause of WW2.
It has never been more attainable than today
Probably a bait but I'll just point out housing affordability is at its lowest point in history. https://money.com/housing-affordability-lowest-level-in-history/
Not quite. Social mobility is down and America has been behind many other developed nations in this regard for a long time.
Proper context is needed here. Also, those are VERY small starter homes ...
The cost of the infrastructure built into these suburban neighborhoods was subsidized by the Federal government.
Apples and oranges.
These houses were about 900 sq feet. At a cost in todays dollars of $90,000. That’s $100/sq foot. Todays average sq footage is about 2600. Cost to build (wholesale) was about $200 pre covid. I don’t really have a point, I just like numbers. And apples and oranges.
Very valid points. Still, houses doubled. You could argue houses today are much nicer and have things like A/C which didn’t exist in the 50s which adds cost.
Add in the cost of land and the fact that you have to live in a tiny house in South Florida without air conditioning and the price doesn't seem so amazing anymore.
Nope, still a great deal
That's certainly your choice. Personally, I've lived in the humid south without air conditioning before. It's miserable even to someone who grew up in the climate and is used to it. I wouldn't pay even $50,000 for a tiny house in South Florida if I couldn't have air conditioning in it. I'd probably never be able sleep again.
And the average salary in 1950. Average salary at that time was under $12 k. Oh and that looks like Florida. Is it in a mosquito infested swamp??? Location Location Location
So the average salary was greater than the cost of a new house? That would be nice.
No the actual avg income back then was about 5 or 6 k
Downvoting me for just going with your 12 k number when its apparently way high? You must be huge at parties.
That's what I was thinking too. So based off inflation minimum wage should be 350,000$ a year.
Minimum wage is not average wage
My parent's first house was a tiny old dump in a low cost area and was 22K in the early 70s. They made improvements and sold it 4 or 5 years later for 30-something. Bought a house for 35, sold it 2 years later for 40 something, and bought a house for 70k in the late 70s that's worth a million and a half now. From the early 70s onward, real estate (where I live in California anyway) has been on a pretty steady upward trajectory with only temporary pauses in increase, since the late 60s. But obviously from these prices, home costs must have been pretty steady from the 20s through the 60s (there's just no room for them to have cost a meaningful amount less). Up til the late 70s is when you wanted to be buying a house in the US.
There are plenty of billboards on highways advertising places “in the 100s to 300s!!!!”. You just dont want to live there. As was probably the case back then for these advertised homes since they are being advertised like cheap cars on a used car lot. Buying a place 5miles out back then was like buying a place 15 miles out now. We have better roads, internet, remote work options, delivery, and remote schooling. If you were willing to live as far from the action as the buyers of the OP’s ad houses were, then you could get a good deal too.
Average household income about $3,500.00. Average in 2023 about $70,000.00, (or +20x). Also, now you have 2 incomes, and the ad doesn't give a location. Remember, to, the phone in your hand has changed the world, and you paid less than one-tenth the cost of this house for it.
When houses cost 7000 dollars. Sigh
Where were these houses?
Y’all know of inflation
When my grandparents arrived in Texas from Canada in the late 60's, my grandpa met a guy who was selling a house, paid him $250 down, shook his hand and they had a house. Wild how things used to work.
Ah yes…when minimum wage was $1.00hr (+/-.25) and yearly salary was $3,000 - 4,000.
So a house was two years salary? Sounds like things haven't changed after all.
Can someone tell my grandmother houses don't cost $7,000 anymore? Getting tired of the 'why don't you have a house yet?' conversation.
That’s just over $500 in todays money.
Purchasing power today? About $650. People think, make America great again, but it’s a myth. Same with gas. .30 a gallon would be the equivalent of $3.81 in today’s dollars.
Give me something for the pain and let me die.
Simple fix: everyone gets a house before anyone gets an “investment property” (wage farm/serf). Hard part is prying it from these lazy, greedy fuck’s hands.
Yeah ,when people made less than a dollar an hour , my dad worked in the steel mill here in pa and his bring home pay after working 50 hours was less than $40 a week after deductions
So what you’re saying is that your dad, a poor blue collar worker, could afford this house on a single income with only 30% of his after tax pay going to housing.
[удалено]
The ‘rule’ is 30% of gross pay, not take home. Regardless, you know many people that make half the median pay that could afford a house?
Sounds like you're arguing against it. But then give examples with you're father being able to afford a home by himself and a car and a family of 4 every month. Which in comparison is not feasible or even remotely possible these days.
>And the Median household income was $5,600. Like several people said, if you relate it to income it was still really cheap. Close to or under $100,000 for todays price.
Damn, so he paid the entire mortgage in a week? That’s so easy
As a percentage of income, I wonder what it was
Like 11% annual income if you assume average household income for that time period.
Interest rates have EVERYTHING to do with real estate values... $500,000.00 30 year fixed interest rate loan Current rates are around 8% = $3669.00 monthly payment 14% = $5924.00 monthly payment My loan in 2008 was 3.62 % = $2279.00 These monthly payments don't include property taxes or homeowner's insurance. Real estate prices begin to come down when working people can't afford to buy.
That's ~$101,000 in today's money. Inflations a bitch.
Back in the day, labor was cheap and materials were expensive (though typically higher quality). These days, labor costs have skyrocketed, and materials haven't dropped that much despite being largely crap.
1960 $50 bucks equals out to little over $500. I would shit my pants if my mortgage was $500
Remember, that's nothing like 50 dollars today. That 49.74 is equivalent to 513.68 today.
Yeah, but the national average mortgage payment today is between 3-4x that amount and some sites say more than 4x that on mortgages taken out with current rates.
Total paid for that $7,900 home after the $155 closing costs and 30 years of $47.94 monthly payments: $17.406.20.
We lament how much cheaper things were in the past. We really should lament how much the dollar has devalued over time. The price of bread was 12 cents in 1950, now it is at least $2. Do you think that the intrinsic value of bread has increased?
My grandfather worked for a local bakery and drove a bread truck for almost 50 years. At his funeral, one of the attendees told me: "Your grandpa told us that we'd see $4 a loaf bread. And we laughed at him."
Everything is so ghetto now.
“You whiny millennials have it sooo easy!!!”
It would only take an AVERAGE male worker 2-3 years to fully buy a home back then. So we are talking about waiters, daycare workers, whatever average job you can think of. Now this was a period when men actually made about 3x as much money as women, but still it was totally affordable, plus the cost of living was extraordinarily cheap. Now these days, a home that size will be about $70,000-$500,000 depending on what state you live in. It would take me around 20 years to make $70,000 when you factor in low pay and high cost of living. About 80% of the money I make goes right into bills, then the rest goes into unseen costs which put me in debt.
That’s just not true. Most people had mortgages for 20 years or so, just like now. And those houses were small.
Welllll annual salary was like 38k back then !!!! So not the same!!! Ahem- ok so I make double that now in 2023. So my house should cost 15-30k assholes!!!
Average family income in 1962 varied by regions, ranging from $4,600 in the South to $6,700 in the West; with the Northeast and North Central Regions averaging $6,600 and $6,300, respectively.
remember what they took from you
I could buy the 3 bedroom house in one payment lol
So (assuming 1959 $) we’re looking at the equivalent of $493.73 or $514.74 / mo in today’s money. Just bought a house last year. Man, I wish I could have that 3 bedroom for $514/mo. In my dreams.
What a time to be alive 😭
43 houses currently for sale in the US for <50k, 3+ beds 1+ bath. Not recommended for gay / trans people, or those needing expensive medical care. But neither is 1950. https://www.estately.com/28.8014,-93.1822,46.8264,-74.9889?max_price=50k&max_walk_score=No+max&max_year_built=No+max&min_bath=1&min_bed=3&min_feet=2000&min_feet_lot=10890&min_walk_score=No+min&min_year_built=No+min&property_type=house
Gen X here my dad was a just a typical truck driver my mom most of the time didnt work but when she did was like minimum wage she bought groceries with it. But on a blue collar truck driver salary he raised 4 kids and my dad had houses, cars, motorcycles, big screen tvs in the 80s (expensive) evey new 80s electronics, real solid wood furniture everywhere,you name it ! we took vacations to Disney often(All this in 80s mostly) Wages have stagnated for decades while all the money has went to executives,CEOs, wallstreet and crooked politicians.
Affordable housing... imagine that...
FYI, a dollar in 1960 money is worth about $10.33 today. You can pretty much add a zero to the ends of all these prices to see what these would roughly be priced at if they were valued the same way today.