Properties in several areas are selling for less than they did 20 years ago, and that's not including inflation. Some first-time buyers are nabbing houses for less than their parents paid.

In parts of Southern California, the housing crash has upended a basic tenet of the American dream: that home values always increase over the long term.

Properties in several areas are selling for less than they did 20 years ago, and that's not even counting the effects of inflation.

The reversal is a bonanza for some first-time buyers. They're nabbing houses for less than what their parents paid in the late 1980s, jumping into a real estate market that has become a kind of economic time machine.

Los Angeles Times