A 1950 starter home was 983 square feet, 2BR/1BA & a modest tiny kitchen. Today’s starter home is 2,500 square feet, vaulted ceilings, walk in everything. It’s luxury dressed up as minimum. The starter home wasn’t stolen, we super sized it out of existence…

A 1000 sq ft house in my neighborhood just sold for $500k It was a 1950s starter home. It’s still a “starter home” today, but yeah, I’d say that’s priced out

What?

The cost to comply with permits and regulations add about $70,000 to $90,000 dollars in costs to each home. You can't build even a tiny home and make a profit. The government regulations have largely created the problem by making it only profitable to build a big expensive house

This is a starter home in my town. It was built in 1954… to say that our homes are more expensive because they are bigger is just ridiculous… oh and this is a fixer upper 😬

THIS is a big one for me. We bought our first home in '99. 6.5%. Both in our late 30's. Qualified for 450k. Bought a 660 sq ft built in '36 on 1 ac. for less than 70k. '16 factory closed. Had we bought at 450k, we would've lost our home at that time. Still here, paid off now.

It's what the builders prefer to build. ,Now days if you find a 1000ft house to buy, you need 24hr armed guards because the neighborhood is so bad.

Also, our families almost never went out to eat, took extremely few vacations and yet today’s generation says we stole it all. Those that have their daily coffee drink, gym memberships and multiple subscriptions complain.

It's poorly built cardboard shit boxes dressed up as luxury, dressed up as minimum.

I grew up in a 3 bed 1 bath house shared by 8-10 or more people. 1 room for parents, 1 for boys, 1 for girls. Grandparents stayed in kids' rooms. No upstairs heat. No AC. 1 income. 1 car. We ate meals at the table together. I'd take it again in a heartbeat.

This still doesn't explain why homeownership has only been an issue in the past 5+ years. Home prices are up 57% since 2019

How about a starter home from the 90s when my parents bought their first house for 2x their yearly salary? Yall go all the way back to 1950 like that was the last time people could afford a house in America when it was just the 90s.

Even building your own home, many places have minimum sizes >1500sf. They say it is to keep neighborhoods consistent but the larger, more expensive the house, the more property tax revenue they collect. Funny coincidence.

This is right on the money. We need builders to start building 1250 sq ft homes again with basic frills. Everyone doesn't need a mcmansion. My first home was 1000 sq ft. It was that size because the 1 car garage was converted to a living space. It was fine as a starter home.

Just going to leave this here:

Look at the tiny home on the cover of this book. That is the dream home.

This is what we call missing the forest for the trees. Instead of how big the houses are focus on price/sq ft. That will give you an apples to apples comparison. '75 price/sq ft: ~$26 '25 price/sq ft: ~$228 CAGR: ~5.10% That's well above the historic 2% average inflation.

Same exact thing that happened with vehicles. We regulated ourselves out of being able to afford anything.

I concur, my home is 930 sq/ft and is beautiful.

Bullshit

At times I wish my 980sqft home was larger. At the end of the day it does what I need it to do and I don't stress about a mortgage (anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 monthly payment of pretty much everyone I know). It will be paid off before I retire. Life is good.

Post WWII housing. $7000.

Here’s the homes:

Now do the lot size

That, and the 99% debasement of the USD over the life of the Federal Reserve. This is the inevitable consequence of a debt-based economy. People can’t afford a 983 sqft home. They can’t afford an ounce of gold either, or ANY hard asset. Ironically, the debt-based fiat money also increases people’s time preference, leading to more impulse buys and less saving for the future. It’s hard to understate the extent of the immoral theft from this central banking experiment. If people realized what was done we’d bring back public hangings.

Whatever you do, don't got to Zillow and prove this person completely wrong. I did.

Yes! This is the #1 problem in our culture today. We have become spoiled and entitled. People can’t afford a first home? BS…they want what people work 20 years to afford. Boomers didn’t have life easier, we had commonsense and practical goals that we worked for. Anyone can!

Those 983 sq ft homes are in the hood and unsafe to live in thanks to the government and section 8 housing, so hard working families still need a home to raise a family.

Dollar per acre based on proximity. That’s where it started.

From 1908-1940, people could order home kits out of the Sears Catalog for under $2000. I thought that was pretty cool. Some of those Sears homes sell for $500K+ today 🙄 Here's an article about them

Housing Amenity Abundance Compared to 1956, we now enjoy 532 more square feet per person, homes packed with 3.7 times more amenities, and all of it for about 24 percent less time per square foot.

Our first home was 680 sq ft. Bought it in 2010. We just sold it 15 years later for 4x what we paid. No improvements. To much money has been printed.

Millenials and Gen Z would turn their collective noses at my first home. Manage your expectations

People don't want to live in working class neighborhoods from the 50s anymore. Too bad for them. I have a nice little inexpensive 50s bungalow that nobody wants in a working class neighborhood and it was affordable. Also high quality build.

What a great point! Add in: used furniture, no cell phone, 1 small tv, no computer, 2 pairs of shoes.