Quote Originally Posted by xsnaggle View Post
That's a silly remark
Houses were cheaper but so were wages lower and then you could only borrow 2.5 x salary for a mortage, plus interest rates were a lot higher. Interest rates of 11% were not unusual.
As an example when I got married in 1972 I had the opportunity to buy a 4 bedroom house for just over £10,000.00 but although I was on a good wages I couldn't afford the repayments. That same house today is worth over £1/4 million.
So people then were using a much larger percentage of their disposable income to buy a house than you have ever experienced. But as you have never known any difference you expect it to last for ever. It doesn't sadly. We all wish it would.
In 1990 Interest rates were 15%. We were paying near 17% - plus an endowment[remember those], which was taking up over half our combined salaries - something like £1000 per month.