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I dont know a single person who wouldn't be happy to buy a 8k freezer, a 6k tv and a 10k washer+dryer if it meant they could buy a 20k house.
The appliances were adjusted for inflation, but not the house. $20k in 1950 is $250k today. Median home price in the US is $450k today. So your point still stands, I think.
Average wage in 1950 was something like 5k. So that 20k house is four years wage.
Average wage now is over 50k. Would you be happy to buy a house for four years wage at 200k? Of course you would.
But would you be happy to buy a typical 1950s house with lead pipes, lead paint, asbestos insulation, no central heating and perhaps not even warm water? Questionable. It's the same thing as with cars. 1950s cars were far more affordable. They were also death traps and a recent diesel VW golf can easily outperform many an 80s ferrari.
Of course, it's not 1950. The world is far richer and more technologically advanced. Anyone should be able to afford a small home and the basics on a minimum wage job. If that's not possible anymore, then society (and the government) is failing.
Youre aware a living fuck ton of houses are the same 1950s ones that they bought back then, right? Likely with a few decades of miscellaneous updates, but surely not enough to make a 200k house worth the 400-450k they go for on average now.
Basically, a house now costs 8yrs wage, not 4. Many of those houses are the same ones that used to go for 4yrs wage.
You think because someone paid 10k to update the electrical and tossed in 20k for hvac over the decades its just a wash though, eh?
I used to work in the building industry. Removing asbestos, lead pipes, lead paint, replacing the electrics, replacing windows and insulation, etc. isn't going to cost you 10k. It's obviously also not going to cost you half a million. Just saying that the past wasn't all peaches and cream. You're comparing apples with oranges.
But as I said, it's not 1950. We're richer and more technologically advanced. (Safe) housing should be relatively affordable, and it's a choice that it isn't. Example off the top of my head: Vienna, Austria. Beautiful city in a rich country. Government owns over half the housing stock, so rental prices stay relatively affordable. AFAIK it doesn't cost them much, if anything it makes them money. Not that it matters. Like public transport or roads, they don't need to be profitable.
e: also, it's a huge waste that so much capital is stuck in housing for decades, rather than being used to fund other stuff.