Maybe I’m thinking too far back into the past, but did anyone you know play a role in building their own house, if not the entire thing?
Most people I know didn’t. Even the guys in trades. They might change something once they move in, but they didn’t help construct it at all. At one point, way back, people built the entire thing themselves. Maybe that limits the size, as most didn’t have the money, supplies, time, or energy to build a larger house than was necessary.
My father did everything but the plumbing and electrical for the ranch home I grew up in. It was about 1300 square feet prior to finishing the basement to open up a large activity room.
Most houses were very similar in my township, very modest homes. I was back there last year and almost all of the new construction is upwards of 2,500 square feet. There are dozens of massive mansions by the standards of the area in 1990, all in former cropland.
A couple of my friends’ dad built a small lake house. Nothing elaborate or large. But it wasn’t like my friends in my neighborhood were from a family with the funds to build an house while buying and operating a household budget at the same time.
My commentary is directly addressing the sentiment bemoaning unsustainable cost of living, which is untrue.
Maybe true depending on where you choose to live, marginally true in many areas with all factors considered.
The 50’s and 60’s lifestyles can be had today, but nobody wants to live them and the choice is made to pay to play in modern society instead.
My great grandfather built his own house, but my great grandmother didn’t like it, so he ended up building another one. The first house just sat on the property empty. I think my great grandfather wanted to leave it as a reminder of what he did for her.
Don’t Google Ferragamo.
I should qualify my statement. $59 shoes is the top amount that I will pay for shoes. That is my high price for shoes.
I just did a quick Zillow search for Southern California with a max price filter of $500k and found 15,187 results.
Granted these homes are not in the Hollywood Hills, but they are in Southern California.
Beggars can’t be choosers and at no point in history has the vast majority of the population been able to waltz up to any old top shelf home and buy it on an electricians salary.
Post the map. I just did the same thing and got back 3500.
He mentioned 1000-1200 sq ft homes. With that there are under 2000.
Even if there were you want people to live 3 hours away from work?
Write now no electrician is affording a $500k house. Top shelf these homes are not even bargain bin. You better be carrying in many of those neighborhoods.
Regarding general consumerism, there has always been an element of an upper crust. “Low brands”, “high brands” and custom options for virtually anything.
While I do think over consumerism and an inability or unwillingness to prioritize, especially in the era of recurring revenue models in general is a big reason why people don’t have the homes they want, my take is that we actively choose a more complicated life with inherently higher built in costs of living today than generations of the past.
Skipping rocks was high entertainment even when I was a kid, and if you could catch a turtle it was a hell of a weekend (I’m 41 going on 42 in a couple months). And all it took was the bike mentioned in a previous post and a pair of shorts. Pick-up baseball or football games, backyard boxing matches…. hell entire summers were spent sitting on boards nailed to tree branches. Sometimes walls were included, sometimes not.
Compare that to $1k gaming consoles and phones that are replaced every couple of years, and who require monthly fees and subscriptions to use as one example that can be extrapolated in so many directions.
Maybe people in the 50’s and 60’s would’ve wound up with the same “struggles” we have if they had all of our options, but they didn’t. We do, and we make our choices. No need to play victim about them.
So here we go again. “I want the $11,000,000 ocean front home on my $75k salary and I can’t have it because times are so hard and boomers”.
Electricians I know are six figure earners. Not the company owners, but the electricians themselves. They can afford a $500k house, but as a reminder the way a top price filter works is by capping at the selected amount of $500k and including options below it, which were numerous. Please don’t misunderstand my earlier post, I’m not calling $500k and below homes “top shelf”. Maybe in Iowa.
Some of them did look pretty rough at the very low end, this is true. Many looked pretty quaint, well kept and seemed to be in quiet neighborhoods albeit likely a commute away from the Rodeo Drive action. And they weren’t out of reach for anyone with a modicum of drive beyond Compton.
So, do I. Union ones and without a lot of overtime you are not making six figures.
The work is probably 90% LA County. To afford a house they buy as far out as Barstow. That is easily a 3-hour drive after work.
I am interested in seeing these quaint homes. Link a few.
I agree, except for boots. I wear chuck’s or whatever i find on sale for sneakers. 55 bux max. But if you need to rely on a pair of boots, walmart wont cut it.
It really depends on the IBEW local within an area.
Ex:
Local 26 can make six figures with no overtime
Local 24 makes around $90,000 or so.
I’m not a blue collar guy and maybe my views are skewed given oil in my neck of the woods but licensed electricians make money in my observation.
Regarding commutes, welcome to suburban life. Especially in LA, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, et cetera.
Lay it out for me, how is it “supposed” to work? Because I’m a little pissed we don’t have Jetson cars or even teleporters yet.
Just use my search parameters. I’m happy to share a screenshot. For fun I checked the commute in Google maps from the pictured home to downtown LA and came up with 1.5 hours. You won’t get much sympathy from this Houston native.
This house is at the top of my $500k filter but I like the irony of it. It’s ironic because I would live in this house, but in my neighborhood it would cost roughly $1.3m -$1.5m dollars and I’m in Texas, where Californians are flocking because it’s cheap and they can’t afford California 
And get this, in traffic I live a 2 hour commute away from Austin and a 1 - 1.5 hour commute away from San Antonio for reference.
There seems to be a weird disconnect with Californians and real estate. I know Beverly Hills is expensive but the majority of the state isn’t Beverly Hills.
Ive notice an increase in the common nostalgia for a time that was never personally experienced. My friends will bring up “when you could work at the plant and afford a big house, walter Cronkite didnt spin the news, and trucks were truuuuucks.” Then you talk to someone who lived through those times and it wasnt all smiles and sunshine.
It’s weird how quickly we forget Westside Story.
And my Silverado would yank a C10 off its chassis 
I am a member.
Local 24 makes $47.00/hr. they are not taking home 90k on straight weeks. Those figures are pretax and/or “total package” i.e benefits.
Again, an electrician is not affording that. You were going to post quaint affordable houses. Even if they could afford it, that is a 3-hour drive from work. People were not doing that in the 60’s.
That whole point of the discussion is the income to house cost gap. There is no denying that it is a big issue. Skipping rocks instead of playing video games is not going to save you enough to buy a home.
