> Housing is another red herring, of course, because the average new American home is 2x bigger now than it was in the 70s
My spouse and I ran into this when we were looking for our current home 5 years ago in Los Angeles. Even though we're older, it's just the 2 of us, so we didn't need something huge. It was really hard to find a reasonably-sized house for 2 people (plus a little room to have a guest stay over). It was really hard to find something because people who want huge houses kept buying small ones for more than asking price, then tearing them down and building a much bigger house on the same lot. The one we did eventually buy had even been enlarged sometime between the 50s when it was built and today.
My spouse and I ran into this when we were looking for our current home 5 years ago in Los Angeles. Even though we're older, it's just the 2 of us, so we didn't need something huge. It was really hard to find a reasonably-sized house for 2 people (plus a little room to have a guest stay over). It was really hard to find something because people who want huge houses kept buying small ones for more than asking price, then tearing them down and building a much bigger house on the same lot. The one we did eventually buy had even been enlarged sometime between the 50s when it was built and today.