cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/10623652
TL;DR: Americans now need to make $120K a year to afford a typical middle-class life and qualify to purchase a home. Minimum.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/10623652
TL;DR: Americans now need to make $120K a year to afford a typical middle-class life and qualify to purchase a home. Minimum.
Do a search for homes in your area that are between 50 and 75 yrs old. These are the houses of the American dream. They are small and they are cheap. When I look in my town I see dozens that can be bought for less than 100k. We’ve got housing affordability problems to be sure. But also, a person in the 1960s living on a factory wage would have looked at a modern 3k sq ft “middle class” home and thought that the richest guy in town must live there.
Sure my grandfather raised 5 kids on a GM salary, but he did it in a 900 sq foot 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house. His house is still standing, Zillow says I could expect to pay 115k for it. The average GM line worker today would turn his nose up at it.
Challenge accepted. I ran a Zillow search with your criteria and prices range from $260k for a fixer upper to $390k for a recent renovation. I’m in a major city, but it’s one of the most affordable in the US. You must be in the suburbs to be seeing those prices. Also bear in mind that the “Zestimate” has no bearing on reality - you need to look at homes that are actually up for sale.
The only thing around me that’s less than 100k are parking spots…
It’s weird, I didn’t say I found those prices in your town. In MY town a 60s palace is ~ 100k and a middle class home as described by the author is 400k
My point is that what is called a middle class home has slid way the fuck up market since the salad days of the 1960s.