re: How can the average person afford to live?

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He's either too stupid or too dishonest (or both) to acknowledge that.

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I quit reading this nonsense about 15 pages ago and saw it pop up again so I saw his post. I don't even understand his point anymore, other than "nothing is fair, waahhhh!"

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Housing prices outpacing inflation by 150% has nothing to do with affordability? How are you this stupid?

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O.k., idiot, here we go.

Let's take the article you just quoted. That $177,788 that houses are "supposed" to be?

If interest rates were what they were when many of us or our parents bought houses, here's how that would break down on that $177,788.

30 year mortgage, principal paid would be $177,788.

Interest would be $456,034.96.

For a total of $633,822.96.

If you take a house for $450,000 at today's interest rates and run the numbers according to average interest rates for the past five years, you get this:

Principal paid: $450,000
Interest paid: $309,469.34

For a total of $759,469.34

The second scenario is higher, yes. By 16%.

You're telling me that the total cost of home ownership being 16% higher now vs 1980 is why people "can't live" and are completely incapable of buying homes?

If so, one of us is so stupid that it's amazing that we can pull up our pants after taking a dump, but it's not me.

There are a dozen ways of dealing with a 16% gap.

EDIT: BTW, I used 11.5% just because we have a poster who bought a house at that interest rate. The interest rate got as high as 16.63% in the 80s. At that point the $177,000 house is actually more expensive than the $450,000 house.

By a lot.

But I don't remember my parents wailing and moaning and gnashing teeth and crying and whining. They just bought a house, cut back on everything else they had to cut back on, and lived their lives.

Now do that combined with rising prices across the board? Do that cost with gas, utilities, groceries, vehicle notes, etc.?

"O.k., idiot, here we go.

Let's take the article you just quoted. That $177,788 that houses are "supposed" to be?

If interest rates were what they were when many of us or our parents bought houses, here's how that would break down on that $177,788.

30 year mortgage, principal paid would be $177,788.

Interest would be $456,034.96.

For a total of $633,822.96.

If you take a house for $450,000 at today's interest rates and run the numbers according to average interest rates for the past five years, you get this:

Principal paid: $450,000
Interest paid: $309,469.34

For a total of $759,469.34

The second scenario is higher, yes. By 16%.

You're telling me that the total cost of home ownership being 16% higher now vs 1980 is why people "can't live" and are completely incapable of buying homes?

If so, one of us is so stupid that it's amazing that we can pull up our pants after taking a dump, but it's not me.

There are a dozen ways of dealing with a 16% gap."





In 1980 the average home price was $47,200 compared to $301,000 today

The home price to median household income ratio was 4.86 at its height in the 80s compared to 7.76 as of June 30, 2022.

And btw, the link I looked at said the average home price in 1980 was $68,700.

The inflation calculator I used said that $68,700 in 1980 was worth $254,000 in 2023.

When you factor in that the average home size in 1980 was 47% smaller than it is now, those numbers suggest that you get more house for your money now than you did then.

Of course, lot sizes were a lot bigger back then on average—so you were paying for the land as well as the house, not as much so now, at least for new houses, but that's why you can't just distill this down to one or two numbers. It's a lot more complicated.

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Housing prices outpacing inflation by 150% has nothing to do with affordability?

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Apparently not for Gen-X or Gen-Z.

Are you a Gen-Y?
If so, you're doing your fellow millennials no favors as you're unfortunately stereotypical.

I'll give you another example my uncle is a dairy farmer. My grandpa started the dairy when he got back from the war. Milked 80-120 head of cows twice a day. Made a decent living and was even able to put away money to retire on. My uncle runs the dairy now milking the same amount of cows and can barely make ends meet. Why is that?

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Sure, first I need a truck as what I do for a living requires it. As far as the house I have a wife and kids so any other option would be just as expensive in rent or not feasible based on size of the house. As far as hobbies: hunting doesn't really cost that much being that I mostly hunt public land so don't spend as much money on it as some do. I guess I can sell my boat and give up fishing so I will concede that to you. Let's say I give up the few other small hobbies I enjoy. Yea, I guess that would leave a little more money at the end of each month, and that's fine if the mindset is work until I retire and hope my knees are still good and my pecker still works so I can finally enjoy life when I do. But I'll be honest doesn't really seem like living to me.

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I notice that you are only appearing to answer the questions while actually not answering them.

What did your truck cost? What did your house cost? What are your payments/mortgage? How many guns do you own and what is their approximate value?

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But I'll be honest doesn't really seem like living to me.

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And if we do get to the bottom of these answers, I'll bet a shiny nickel that that statement ends up being the crux of the biscuit.

Again, my parents didn't evaluate the value of living that way. If you could afford a boat, you bought one and were happy about it. If you couldn't, you didn't, and you didn't conclude that life wasn't worth living because you couldn't afford a boat.

If you really wanted one and couldn't afford one you worked another job so that you could afford one. But most people just didn't buy one if they couldn't afford it.

But advertising and the influence of media has changed people's mindsets drastically since my parents bought their first house in 1980. Yeah, they rented until then. Got married in 1963 but didn't buy a house until 1980.

People used to simply not buy things they couldn't afford. But people have become programmed think that they deserve to have exactly what they want. Not just a truck, but the exact truck they want. Not just a house, but the exact house they want.

Despite the pig dullard parroting the clickbait articles (which again, is where this mindset comes from in the first place) when you consider all aspects of affordability, it really isn't much more expensive now than it was back then.

The much bigger difference is people's mindsets and feelings of consumer entitlement.

Well hell I hate to say it but ya got me there.