''- the higher standards of housing expected and indeed mandated A lot of things add to the cost: - people expect more...2 or 3 bathrooms (unheard of when I was young) - solar panels, aircon, outdoor entertainment areas etc etc (not that there's anything wrong with that), but many things that were not part of the cost in earlier times - the increased cost I think anyway brought on by the shift to subcontractors about 40 years ago, which added a package of costs greater than when they were carried as a group by employers - and then of course the cost now of imported material''
that's all about the building cost ------------------- you totally missed the biggest cost of all
the speculative portion in the price of the land on which the sticks and bricks sit on
it's kinda like standing eyeball to eyeball with an elephant and you'd not noticed it's grey or big
