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Component Manufacturing dverti$ dverti $ er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$$er
August 2020 #12253 Page #94
Is the Dream of Owning a Single Family Home Just a Dream for Many Buyers? By Gary Fleisher
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little over 30 years ago along Rt 15 in Selinsgrove, PA, a modular home builder had two model homes on his lot. They were both ranch style homes, 2 or 3 bedrooms, 1 bath models. One was 28’ x 44’ and the other was 28’ x 48’ if memory serves me. The sign said he would put either home on your lot with excavation, foundation, and finish the house for less than $40,000. He only offered these two models but you could choose your siding color and flooring. He sold a ton of them every year. Those types of starter homes are basically disappearing. They aren’t being built anymore in most parts of the country. In 1950, the average price was $11,000. For perspective, median income, in real dollars, was about $3,300. The average home was 963 sq. ft. A majority of homes had two bedrooms and one bathroom. By 1972, prices had jumped to $30,000 while family income was nearly $10,000. Homes, which typically had three bedrooms and at least a bath and a half, now averaged 1,600 sq. ft. That kind of house can comfortably shelter a family with 2.3 children. Today, families are smaller — from 1970 to 2014, family size shrunk by about half a person, but the average new home is about 2,300 sq. ft. More space, fewer people. Now homes have central air and finished basements and man caves and spa tubs and, yes, granite countertops. But all those things are useless to young families who have no idea where to find the $500,000 they have to pay to live in a place with decent schools that’s within 50 miles of their workplace. Today, if a modular home builder could build a home like the one mentioned above that included the excavation, foundation, and finish work for 4 times median income of say $50,000 bringing the completed house in at $200,000, he/she could sell hundreds of them.
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