• __matthew__@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    The first stat is a little misleading IMO. While the median car cost has increased ~2x (inflation adjusted), an entry level car price has only gone up ~1.2x (1971 AMC Gremlin vs 2023 Kia Rio LX; $1.8k/$14.8k vs $17.8k) and that’s more important for measuring relative quality of life.

    Of course add on to that the fact that there’s easy access to second hand car markets and the number of features included with that base model vs the 1971 AMC Gremlin and it doesn’t seem like things are much worse.

    Basically, average car prices increasing could just indicate that people are willing to spend more on cars for whatever reason that may be (better features, more car-centric culture, etc.). For this reason I’d like to see similar stats but about entry level options within each category. Probably less sensationalistic but still interesting.

    That being said, I bet stats for the housing market and others would still show a notable increase even at the entry level, but I’d still like to verify this before blindly jumping on the sensationalist bandwagon.

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      I also want to know what those $25k houses are selling for now. Comparing to houses built in 2024 is stupid.

      • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        In 1988 my family home in the UK was 33k. We sold in 2011 for 185k. My house in 2014 cost 118k and is now worth 195k.

        So, it’s not that stupid.

        • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          So the 1988 home sold for about 6 times its purchase price and and the 2014 house is 1.65 times its purchase price. Both of those are way less than the 25x that the image claims.

          • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            But the graphic is stating from 1971 so 18 years before the 1988 house. In 1971 the average house price in the uk was about 5k.

            You are the one conflating here.