I 100% agree we live in a much more wasteful society these days, but the real wage value compared to housing is the real deal, im not making this stuff up.
We are bombarded with adds and fads and companies in today's capitalist world design products to fail to promote more purchasing. Eg look at modern phones, they are designed to break with glass on every leading edge that will break if ever dropped, batteries are pretty shit after 2 years but the won't let you just change the battery, they are sealed in there you have to break into the phone and void your warranty if you wanted to replace a battery..
And yes a lot of stuff is actually cheaper now but not houses...
some example for you.
Average wage in 1975 = $7618
average house price in melbourne 1975 = 28k
28,000/7618 = 3.67 or 3.67 full years wage for a house
Average wage in 2016 $78,832
Average house price in Melbourne 2016 = 800k
800,000/78,832 = 10.14 or 10.14 full years wages for a house
These are cold hard facts it is much much more expensive to buy a house today then it was in the 70's
Now you could argue other factors and you would have a point, eg interst rates, other costs of living. For example Milk and petrol are much cheaper now in comparison to 1975 but other staple have gone up etc.
But is is a fact that with real house price compared to wages the younger generation has it very tough, we can't just deny the housing bubble mate it's there!
