Car loans for 84 months (back after World War 2, I have read, home mortgages were that length).
The doubling of home prices out of thin air due to securitization of mortgages and the offloading of risk from the banks ("liar's loans").
etc.
Those home loans may have been that short, but then wages were terrible
back then compared to today, so it would seem to me it still would have been
hard to make mortgage payments.
The price of homes goes up, because folks gauge the market and come up
with an asking price, and someone comes forward to pay it.
The cost of everything seems to go up, because the value of the dollar
continues to go down.
In the 1980s we could buy silver for $3.00 bucks an ounce. Today it's
around $18.00. It takes more dollars to buy silver, because they are worth
less.
That example plays out across the board.
Homes in the 1980s going for $200,000, are worth $1.0 to $1.2 million today.