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Comment by TuringNYC | Hacker News Reader

This is the "Avocado Toast" argument that we're poor because we spend $10 on Avocado Toast.

It is totally false. It blames citizens for national structural economic problems like hidden inflation and like bad housing policies discouraging building/planning.

People spend $10 for Nextflix, $90 for Amazon, etc as short term pleasures because they cant spend $GIANT on a mortgage. What are you supposed to do? Might as well treat yourself.

Of course, I'd rather get a home, but if I cant afford it, I wont just sit at home staring at a wall.

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>It is totally false.

It's false for some locations but not for others. I checked on the two homes I lived in growing up and both appreciated slower than inflation from the late 90s to the early 2010s when they were last sold. In real terms they are about 20% cheaper than they were when my parents bought/sold them.

Flyover suburbia is more affordable than it was 20-30 years ago. All major physical items are better and cheaper than they used to be. Netflix is cheaper and better than VCRs + rentals + expensive cable. The big difference is health care and college costs. But most people don't have huge medical bills and college is somewhat of a choice.

The cost of living increase is largely driven by California, NYC, and Seattle. Pretty much every where else things are cheaper than they used to be.

I dont quite agree. I dont think you can compare home to inflation only -- you have to also look at the income in that area as well as total cost. If incomes have also fallen, then the relative cost/income ratio may have remained the same (or as i'm proposing -- has increased.)

As an example, there are depressed areas in flyover states where costs have indeed gone down. But incomes have gone down even more -- they are once thriving places like Binghamton NY which had industries that have since moved overseas.

There is also the cost of healthcare, education, and retirement savings. My father benefited from a pension plan -- I have to save myself in a 401k. My father paid no employee premiums for healthcare, I pay about $900/mo for the family premium (before copays and coinsurance.)

It's not just in declining cities. One of those houses is in the suburbs of Chicago. It's true in basically everyplace outside of the ones I mentioned. You can find a SFH around any major city for 150-300k.

Healthcare is definitely eating up more of the budget. I'm open to the possibility that it's eating up so much more of the budget that it's making buying a house prohibitive, but the numbers I see don't back it up. Most people still have employer provided healthcare and don't pay 900 a month in premiums. Part of that is CoL. Your contribution are higher than my family plan premiums I got through the market place.

Chicago is only getting more expensive

The city, sure. But the surrounding suburbs are affordable

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