First you're getting a vastly different product today than in 1946. Consumer demands are far higher too.
Also to compare affordability the metric for most people would be the median percentage case of mortgage payments vs the persons take home pay. When measured this way it's been hovering around 30% for the past 40 years in the UK.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-house-prices-unlikely-cra...
Horseshit. Homes built in 1946 are selling for millions of dollars, even if they're going to be torn down and rebuilt for marginal cost. You're not buying a house, you're buying the land and taking responsibility for everything on it.
And even then, the lumber you get out of such an old house is quite valuable virgin oldgrowth, a better quality product than you can buy at a lumber yard today.
And, to pick a nit... comparing the median income to median house price is an examination of relative price, not absolute.
To compare the 1946 houses location you need to pick something with the same level of amenity, which will be probably a country town.
That $150k house in the boonies, even if it was built yesterday, has less value, because the community it is in is in the process of dying and has no opportunity. That same house in the same town sold for $60k in 1989, while that very town was much more functional, alive, and happy than it is now.
Is that true? Something like 40% of the UK housing stock was built pre-WW2. Sure they’ll no longer have a coal bunker and they most likely have had insulation upgrades etc. but a pre-WW2 house in 1946 is still a pre-WW2 house today. The modern build will have less living space, predominately through smaller room sizes but should be cheaper to heat.
>> Also to compare affordability the metric for most people would be the median percentage case of mortgage payments vs the persons take home pay
That lops off all the people who can’t afford a mortgage so i dont think that logic works.
Are you? You're getting a place to live and property you own.