Home price inflation is so high, it's changing American economic life - Marketplace
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From 1984 to 2023, the median cost of a new home rose 423%, more than double the rate of overall price inflation.

We’ve been dealing with high inflation in this economy over the last several years, with everything from groceries to new vehicles to construction supplies soaring in price.

But for one item in particular — houses — we’ve seen such sharp inflation over decades that it’s starting to change the landscape of American economic life. What happens in society, and in history, when costs for basic necessities, like shelter and food, shoot up in price?

Let’s start by going back four decades, to 1984. The movie “Ghostbusters” was a blockbuster that year. And the median price of a new home wasn’t so scary: $79,900 in the fourth quarter of 1984, according to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Since then, consumer prices overall have risen 203%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics information and analysis section. Meanwhile, the median price of a new home was $417,700 in the fourth quarter of 2023. That works out to an inflation rate of 423%.

  • SoylentBlakeEnglish
    31·
    3 months ago

    On the bigger houses; it ultimately might prove beneficial

    …since wealth consolidation is forcing houses to be generational again.

    Victorian-era houses were larger than the ramblers or craftsman of the midcentury. Or farm houses, where you’d expect grandparents to grand kids all under the same roof.

    Living on your own before marriage is simultaneously a modern thing and now a past thing.

    Fwiw I don’t want a huge house. 2 bedroom, maybe 3, and id prefer it 2 story in that case cuz it’d be easier to heat.

    The last 3 bedroom house I rented, in 2012 with some coworkers, cost us $600+/month to heat oct-may. In Washington State, which HAS low energy prices (currently $.07/kwh from the local PUD edit: I just checked to verify this as my info was mid pandemic, it’s currently $.093/kwh). While that house obviously could’ve been more efficient, it’s not like prices ever go down. My visceral reaction to that extortion led me to today, living off grid, generating my own power and using a wood stove to cook by/heat our place.

    Wood heat is superior, imo. The smoke from it is a huge suck tho.