[engeljohnb]

This ridiculous lie needs to end.

I can get a microwave for ~$60.

I can get a decent used cell phone for ~$100.

Appliances are a little more expensive, but I can get a washing machine for ~$300, less if I go to facebook marketplace.

But in my area, a victorian house that's litterally crumbling with no central cooling and not up-to-code wiring where you can't run a hair dryer and coffee machine at the same time?

$180,000

Cost of rent at a similar quality house half the size?

$1600/month

Modern comforts are not the reason people can't afford to live.

[kakacik]

Modern mindsets are. 100 years ago you passed as a good parent if your kids weren't all mental asylum cases due to how their home and role models looked like, you didn't beat them regularly to pulp to vent off frustrations, didn't run away, weren't raging alcoholic and just let them grow up on their own, with some input from mother. Some survived, some didn't.

Try to do it now - what about pregnancy leave? Post-birth leave even in situation with no health complications for mother and child? Creche? Pre-school? Post-school activities? Frequent visits to doctors. And so on and on. When are we supposed to do so with our active even if just normal careers? These are massive costs even in Europe, must be absolutely crushing in US.

People come home at the evening, drained from work. Who can efficiently handle well more than 2 small kids on top of all that and other duties that life daily puts on each of us?

There are studies showing that happiness of parents peaks with 2 kids, and 3rd is already a dive into less happiness for most and it doesn't stop there. So massive financial, time and energy costs to reach even replacement rate are not worth it.

We have 2 kids and somehow managing without nanny or parents nearby. 2 families of peers who have 3 kids are almost impossible to get together with - they are barely managing somehow, most of the time, always late by an hour or two to any meeting. Its really a massive jump in complexity. For more, you properly need a nanny or close family helping out massively, it just doesn't work with 2 people working without hitting burnout or two.

But then its delegated parenting - why even bother with more kids if you don't raise your own kids, donate sperm or an egg if you just need to tackle a checkbox in life. Parenting needs are more than fulfilled with 2 kids. If state needs more it needs to create something better than 2-3 decades of nightmare to raise them for regular folks. State help even in Europe (or lack of it) is not something motivating to have more kids.

[ralphhughes]

It's fascinating and depressing how despite me being in a different country on the other side of the world to you, if I swap the $ for £, your comment is still accurate based on the current situation in the UK.

[dzonga]

the 1 bed attic apartment I lived in london - rent 1550 - cost to buy £300k.

that's when I knew it was time to leave the uk.

at least the us & most non eu countries have cheap power. which means better standards of living.

[roenxi]

You've forgotten electricity, depreciation and the need for the house to be wired up to support all the gear. The figures you're quoting are just the price for a one-off purchase, not the total cost of ownership.

> But in my area, a victorian house that's litterally crumbling with no central cooling and not up-to-code wiring where you can't run a hair dryer and coffee machine at the same time?

> $180,000

I'm not familiar with the market you're talking about. What is the median wage in the area that we're comparing $180,000 to?

[engeljohnb]

This is all real numbers from ny recent job search. It was in a rural area in Indiana, a reportedly low COL state. So anything close to a city would've been way more expensive.

> You've forgotten electricity, depreciation and the need for the house to be wired up to support all the gear. The figures you're quoting are just the price for a one-off purchase, not the total cost of ownership.

Cost of total rewire was quoted $30,000. We didn't end up buying that house, but 30k is honestly a drop in the bucket when you're talking about numbers as huge as 180k. So no, the inclusion of electrical wiring is not some big expense that's making housing unaffordable. And houses had electricity in the mid-to-late 20th century... You know, back when it was reasonable to expect to be able to buy a house on one income without even a college degree.

Our electricity bill is usually ~$200/month. This is not what eats most of our paycheck. Our mortgage is far and away our biggest expense.

If houses still costed 20k (a price that many older folks have told me they bought a house for), even with a full rewire bringing it up to $50k, some kid working at Walmart could own a house. Now both renting and buying are prohibitively expensive, and it has nothing to do with modern amenities.

Housing costs are outrageous, far beyond the rate of inflation. That's why many can barely pay their bills. Not because we have electricity and washing machines and and microwaves.