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> Their parents bought houses in rural suburbia.

I bought a 3,000+ sqft house in a desirable part of my city 5 years ago. My friends spent 10% more money 1 year ago and got a 1,800 sqft house that's newer, recently renovated. It's a few blocks away.

This is not an issue of generational expectations. Prices for the same type of house with the same standard of living have skyrocketed compared to real income.

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Quite right. And also I know multiple people from the (now) older generation who are sitting on large amounts of property and renting it out for correspondingly huge amounts of income. Once into one property .. it was possible for a person to essentially chain from one mortgage to another (using the proceeds from the previous rental as collateral). The person in question now owns 5 houses -all accomplished bootstrapped on a school salary, starting in the early 70's. Utterly impossible now IMO, unless you win at the tech work lottery :) - it is of course impressively entrepreneurial, but also she wonders why her daughter has not settled down and purchased a house ..

Has the all in cost actually changed much? If someone bought a house 6 months ago, they could lock in high 2's for 30 years.

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