What would the Bradys Cost in 2008?

[Brian Damage]

Est. home value in the '70s: $87,700
2008 est. value: $509,700

Actual 2008 value of "real"
Brady house: $1.5 million


Raising six kids has never been easy, and architects don't make as much money as television's Mike Brady would lead us to believe. Wow, there's a surprise.

The Bradys lived in a large, four-bedroom house with a live-in housekeeper in suburban Los Angeles. In the earliest figures available from the National Association of Realtors, the average cost of a single-family home in the area was $87,700 in 1979.

Today, the average house in the same area goes for $509,700, and a house that can fit nine (not counting Oliver) would probably cost a lot more. Real estate Web site Zillow.com, currently values the "real" Brady House at about $1.5 million.

An architect's annual pay averages $64,150, according to the latest estimates from the BLS. That would mean Mike made an inflation-adjusted $15,687 a year during the show's final season in 1974 when Greg was getting ready to go college.

If Greg went to a state school, Mike and Carol would have been on the hook for about $636 per year, according to the University of California, or $2,984 in today's dollars - unless he decided to ditch the books and follow his dream as rock singer Johnny Bravo.


http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/...culture/2.html