this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

That’s money in 1980 dollars. 15k per year was a lot of of money. A house was about 20-25k.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (3 children)

That's an exaggeration. The median price for new construction in 1980 was $64,600. [1] As for existing housing stock, the median home value in 1980 was $47,200. [2] As housing prices are heavily right skewed, the prices of cheap housing is far closer to the median than the price of expensive housing. Based on a cursory overview of some charts, it seems like the bottom 20% of houses are no more that 30% cheaper than the median, putting them in the $30k range.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

We are talking Kansas City. Not a general area like the Midwest.

My parents home was 20k in 1975. My grandparents homes were about 10k in the same time frame.

Kansas City was very cheap at the time. Yes there were more expensive homes but in the 1980’s working class families didn’t have McMansions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

1975 =/= 1980. Looks like housing went up 64% in those 5 years from the data I already linked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

The data isn’t relevant since it’s not for the area defined. We are talking about a specific geographic area. Kansas City proper.

Due to the white flight of the 70’s housing prices declined or only grew fractionally.

When my grandparents died, each of their homes only sold under 20k in the late 90’s early 20’s.

Comparing the price of home across the Midwest has nothing to do with the price in East Kansas City or SE where I went to school