Yeah I worked this out a few years back. 1955/1985/2015, minimum wages in relation to the cost of a house. In 1955 it was equivalent to £45/h; in 1985 £26/h; in 2015 £9/h. It took 4 years to buy a house; now it takes 40 years to buy a down payment
A lot of cross-referencing, finding studies/articles and historical archives of both for the time period (conveniently one from 1955 was available) regarding 2 bedroom house prices on average across the Kingdom, and the government’s data on minimum wages. I made sure to compare the national data with at least two cities in separate regions. I divided the house cost by the wage per hour for each period, and got the hours necessary to earn that much. I then made a very rough assumption of the ability to save 40% of the total earned and arrived at a more realistic timeframe to buy a house outright.
Once I had the monetary value of each thing I put them into the RBS Inflation Calculator to see their value today. Minimum wages in 1955 were equal to ~£25 (in 2018), but 2 bed house prices were nearly half the price they are now, so for the wages to match the housing market also they need to be ~£48 today. (I performed this study in 2018 but before an event involving the loss of most of my digital data. I should remake the study so you guys don’t rely on my memory alone)
Sometimes I’ve used a different account on different devices because I’ve forgotten how to log into the first one but it stayed logged in, so if its ain’t broken, no need to fix it.
Edit: I’m none of the other people in this thread.
Right I get that kind of thing but what makes this case weird to me is that for this scenario to happen, you either have to either accidentally stumble back onto the thread or you have to actively be checking manually as a different user to see if someone replied, since you’re obviously not going to get a notification from an account you’re not currently using.
One thing I haven’t seen anyone talk about in this discussion is the size difference in houses that are being built today vs 1950.
Typical homes being built in the 1950s were around a thousand square feet. Today they’re over two thousand square feet. The kind of homes that would be a starter home for a working class family back in the 1950s just don’t exist anymore.
A 1950 single family house was 1000 square foot AND it had 3 or more bedrooms (I’ve seen up to 5). A 1000 square foot condo built today is 1 bedroom, not at all built for a family.
The difference? Basements don’t count toward square footage.
As for cost on existing old homes, they’re expensive today because there are so few of them and they’re in demand. That proves my point.
US population in 1950 was 151 million. Today it’s 342 million. Yet if you look at the data, housing construction has been flat since 1968.
There are plenty of reasons for houses to be bigger today; things like improved building techniques, better heating.
Also, I doubt the claim. In my area, when a big old one family house gets torn down, it’s usually replaced by a dozen condos. The average size of today’s houses might be skewed by giant mansions
The main reason houses are bigger today: they’re more profitable. Building bigger houses on smaller land nets developers a big profit.
McMansions is what they’re affectionately known as in the architecture world. They’re not proper mansions (enormous 20 bedroom country estates), but hardly any of those exist anywhere.
Yeah I worked this out a few years back. 1955/1985/2015, minimum wages in relation to the cost of a house. In 1955 it was equivalent to £45/h; in 1985 £26/h; in 2015 £9/h. It took 4 years to buy a house; now it takes 40 years to buy a down payment
This sounds interesting, how did you calcualte this?
A lot of cross-referencing, finding studies/articles and historical archives of both for the time period (conveniently one from 1955 was available) regarding 2 bedroom house prices on average across the Kingdom, and the government’s data on minimum wages. I made sure to compare the national data with at least two cities in separate regions. I divided the house cost by the wage per hour for each period, and got the hours necessary to earn that much. I then made a very rough assumption of the ability to save 40% of the total earned and arrived at a more realistic timeframe to buy a house outright.
Once I had the monetary value of each thing I put them into the RBS Inflation Calculator to see their value today. Minimum wages in 1955 were equal to ~£25 (in 2018), but 2 bed house prices were nearly half the price they are now, so for the wages to match the housing market also they need to be ~£48 today. (I performed this study in 2018 but before an event involving the loss of most of my digital data. I should remake the study so you guys don’t rely on my memory alone)
They asked someone how they calculated something and then you, a completely different person, answered as though you were the person being asked.
Hi, Internet, we’re all Internet. It’s like dreaming; it doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to seem like it makes sense. Does this make sense?🙏
Is it a different person?
Or just a different account?
The world may never know.
Pretty strange either way imo
Sometimes I’ve used a different account on different devices because I’ve forgotten how to log into the first one but it stayed logged in, so if its ain’t broken, no need to fix it.
Edit: I’m none of the other people in this thread.
Right I get that kind of thing but what makes this case weird to me is that for this scenario to happen, you either have to either accidentally stumble back onto the thread or you have to actively be checking manually as a different user to see if someone replied, since you’re obviously not going to get a notification from an account you’re not currently using.
Ah ok, that all makes sense to me. Thank you for taking the time to go through it 🙂
One thing I haven’t seen anyone talk about in this discussion is the size difference in houses that are being built today vs 1950.
Typical homes being built in the 1950s were around a thousand square feet. Today they’re over two thousand square feet. The kind of homes that would be a starter home for a working class family back in the 1950s just don’t exist anymore.
First of all, yes they do. They’re just mostly condos instead of single-family detached houses.
Second, even houses literally built in the '50s that still exist are expensive these days.
A 1950 single family house was 1000 square foot AND it had 3 or more bedrooms (I’ve seen up to 5). A 1000 square foot condo built today is 1 bedroom, not at all built for a family.
The difference? Basements don’t count toward square footage.
As for cost on existing old homes, they’re expensive today because there are so few of them and they’re in demand. That proves my point.
US population in 1950 was 151 million. Today it’s 342 million. Yet if you look at the data, housing construction has been flat since 1968.
That’s not really relevant.
There are plenty of reasons for houses to be bigger today; things like improved building techniques, better heating.
Also, I doubt the claim. In my area, when a big old one family house gets torn down, it’s usually replaced by a dozen condos. The average size of today’s houses might be skewed by giant mansions
The main reason houses are bigger today: they’re more profitable. Building bigger houses on smaller land nets developers a big profit.
McMansions is what they’re affectionately known as in the architecture world. They’re not proper mansions (enormous 20 bedroom country estates), but hardly any of those exist anywhere.