Quote:
Originally Posted by JManc
Wages have stagnated. My stepfather paid $80,000 for our 4 bedroom house back in the 80's. This was an area where cops drove Volvo's and there was a country club with golf courses. He made about $50k at the time (which was pretty good for the era). His salary was well over half the cost of the house.
Today, that salary equates to about $118k but a comparable house in a comparable neighborhood would be around $300k. Roughly 2.5x his salary.
Yes, there are a lot of moving parts in the housing market but Denver is $$ because people want to live there. The city is booming, it's cosmopolitan, has a vibrant economy and it has the Rockies.
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These are two different conversations here.
Is the price of housing way higher than it used to be compared to incomes; yes
are homes overvalued; generally speaking not at the moment.
But you must keep in mind that there are a number of factors that go into the cost of home vs income. Doesn't account for the fact that average homes have changed in size, quality, materials, the cost of other consumer goods of collapsed like electronics and food relative to income.
And you cant consider your anecdotal experience as the overall national health, Chicago area housing has been very stagnant in my opinion, but Chicago isn't growing like western cities so the value of housing hasn't gone up as much.
but yeah these are two separate things.