Yes, you read that right. Sixteen thousand Five Hundred Dollars.
Of course, a dozen eggs cost 57 cents and a loaf of bread was a quarter.
But I digress.
In those bygone days, owning a home was the pinnacle of achievement. It was "The American Dream". Part of the reason it was a "dream", is that it was not easy to achieve. When you owned a home, you had arrived.
In those days, and frankly in the days when I first started Real Estate, people saved for a down payment, usually 20%. On $16,500, that would be somewhere around $3300. And the average house payment was $85.00. Remember,we're talking about a time when the average household yearly income was $5620.00. (Source: bls.gov/opub/uscs)
It is true that everything was cheaper then. Milk was 49 cents a gallon. Gas was 31 cents a gallon. A stamp was 4 cents.
And the mail was delivered on time.
Saving for a down payment and buying a house were a benchmark of success -- much as they still are today.
In comparison, buying a house in 2015 is actually much easier. The interest rate is incredibly low. Compare today's rate to the interest rate in 1993 when I was first licensed to be a Realtor. The rate in January of 1993 was around 8% for a 30 year Fixed Rate Mortgage. The rate in January of 1995 was 9.15%.
At this writing, the 30 year rate is 3.76% (Source: Zillow), and that is a thirteen week high!
Lenders and the government and the economy have all banded together to make owning a home more accessible to today's consumer than ever before.
Does that make the American Dream less valuable? Not at all. It simply makes it more accessible.
And there's nothing quite so satisfying as making a house your home.
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