[lbo-talk] housing bubble?

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Sat Jan 29 16:33:14 PST 2005


Jordan Hayes wrote:


> Ok, here's my second personal anecdote: I am able to afford a much
> better place to live today than I could 15 years ago. This is in some
> part because my income is higher, my spending patterns have changed,
> etc. But it is FAR more due to the structural changes in the mortgage
> market that makes financing available to me that simply didn't exist
> back then. And this completely overwhelms the difference in housing
> prices between then and now. And I don't think I'm alone in this.

How come, when my dad bought a house in the middle of LA in 1971, for $26,000, it represented about 1.5 times his salary as a unionized billing clerk (Teamsters); but, if I wanted to by a comparable house in the bay area today at about 500,000, I would be paying five times my annual salary as a bleeding edge/hi tech/ tech writer?

Genuinely curious,

Joanna



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