[quote=AN][quote=sdcellar]
[quote=AN]Regarding the class of 2000 comment, yes, it’s the former. Class of 2002 made about $45-50k fresh out of school. Now, those same people are making around $80-100k. The fresh grads now are making between $55k-65k, based on salary.com. So, if you’re comparing fresh grad vs fresh grad, the salary went up between 22%-30%.[/quote]Yes, so decidely less than 35%.[/quote]
Even taking 20% income inflation, median home price in SD in 2000 was $269,410 and in 2008, it was $305,000. So, median home price went up 13% between 2000-2008 while entry level engineer salary went up between 22%-30%. Well above 13%.
If you think 2000-2008 # might be skewed, I know someone who graduated in 1988 as an engineer. He told me fresh grad back then made around 25-30k/yr. Median home price in 1988 was $153,410. So median home price went up 99% over 21 years. Salary for a fresh grad engineer went up between 115%-120%. So, over 21 years, median house price traced fresh grad engineer salary pretty well. I don’t know about other profession, so this might not apply so well.[/quote]
Wow, for the most part, I’m just responding to your numbers, but you just keep coming back with something else. I can’t really track down your buddy, so I give up. I will say that I think we can both agree (?) about flaws in the median at various points in time (including now), so that makes it very hard for me to concede that it consistently tracks _engineering_ salaries. Bubbles would indicate otherwise, but sure, in the *long* run there is a causal relationship between wages and house prices (duh). I think it was Shiller who said, “people need to be able to pay for the f’in places.”
