A New York Mortgae Planners View:

Business week had a segment on their video cast how much 1 dollar can buy you today versus how much one dollar was able to buy in 1948.

Back in 1948 one dollar bought you a cup of coffee hamburger ice cream and some other desert.

These days, one dollar can get you a small can of Pringles. Pretty negative huh?

Well they left out one pretty significant piece to the puzzle.

Looking at the US wages history chart on the US labor department website you can clearly see that back in 1948 the minimum wage for an hour was 0.40 cents. That means that if you spend a dollar for lunch which was more then twice the minimum hourly wage then one dollar would have gotten you all these mentioned above.

These days Minimum wage is $7.25,lets have a look on what 1 hour of earnings can buy us today.

Looking just on the McDonald's Dollar menu you can have a

McChicken sandwich $1

Double Cheese Berger $1

2 Pieces of Pie $1

Fruit and yogurt farfait $1

12 once Soft Drink $1

Side Salad, $1

And golden French fries $1 or you can get all of it for just the price of minimum wage!

Pretty similar to 1948 huh or better of?

What does that have to do with real estate?

Great question! and the answer is that people are always hearing how cheep real estate was 20 years ago, how easy it would have been if we where only around then or would have bought then. But people often neglect to look at the income you had back then, See it is relative to your income.

I can bet you that in 20 years from now prices of houses will be allot higher then it is currently and the same chant of shoulda woulda coulda will be repeated..

In Summary

Recession Inflation blah blah blah... if you can afford it now and your current income and future income will be able to support your purchase then buy now and enjoy the upside we are going to enjoy soon once again.

Get in touch with a financial professional , Real estate professional and make things happen