The subject of this post is the title of an interesting article on page 58 of this month’s Wired magazine. The author, Patrick Di Justo, shows that compared to 1950 prices, we are paying more of our annual income for houses, but we get a lot more for our dollar.

For example, the average square feet per persion in 1950 was 289.1 compared to 896.2 today. Price per square foot, when adjusted for inflation is actually lower today than in 1950. One of the more striking numbers is the square feet annual income buys today as compared to then. Then one could buy 429.3 square feet while today one can buy 930.1.

What I would love to see is this analysis applied to Los Angeles home prices from 1950 to present.