> While housing has indeed gotten more expensive you can't compare absolute prices.

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.