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Housing prices
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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It's not just size and quality though - my house is the same size as my mom's house was, hers was 13,000 in the 1960s. It's the same size as the old one I bought for 36k in the housing crash in the 1990s, and sold for 80k in 2010ish, after an addition and metal roof. It is actually for sale again now by someone else after more renovations, they are asking half a million and will probably get close to that.
The one we have now (same square footage, half built in 1940, addition in 1990s) we had to pay almost 300k and is "worth" (market, not underlying value obviously) like half a million, we did improve it with hurricane windows and metal roof and roof attachments.
I have never bought as an investment, only as housing. Something is broken, I DO think my house is worth maybe 200k as a real value, I think we overpaid. but the prices now are so much worse than that.
Yes Florida building code is serious so new houses do have additional utility. But I have only lived in older houses and they are also out of control price wise.
The big new ones around here go for 1.5 million now - I could have bought every house on my block in the 1990s for less than that.
It's important that we use inflation adjusted numbers here. 13,000 from 1965 would be $137,000 now.
You only bought it as a house, but people around you bought as an investment.
Right. It was like 2 years of pay for her so 100- 200k seems about right for a house. Not a million dollars.
Now imagine that house burned down. How much would it cost to replace it under current code compliance and construction costs? How much is it insured for? For example, my house is currently valued at about $200,000. I could not rebuild this house for $200,000. I'd be lucky to be able to rebuild it for $260,000.
Anyway, let's get back to the main point. There's more than inflation going on here. There are multiple factors, not just one.
Yeah my husband thinks 350k would rebuild it, because part of the value is the land. But we could not rebuild what we have for any price, because the wood it's made of is not available anymore.
And yes - some of the increase is apples to oranges, just like with cars - the 1967 mustang I had was good for about 100k miles, maybe. New cars last easily 3x that, and safer and more efficient.
But no way is that most of the increase. There needs to be some relationship between pay and housing that makes sense. With insurance and tax, those million dollar homes would cost nearly 8k per month even if no repairs or maintenance- that is so much more than the netpay for a good job, I don't know who is buying them.
I have seen several crashes already, and know price doesn't just increase forever. Am watching with interest to see what happens here.