Although the current housing prices were extremely cheap compared to the future, many people still could not afford it. Everyone's income now was also very low.
If the Cao family's half of the courtyard house was to be bought with money, it would cost about 40,000 dollars. Even if Xia Wen's family did not spend any money at all, they could only save a little more than 1,000 dollars a year. It would be hard for Xia Wen to have 40,000 dollars.
People did not think of buying properties during this time. Their workplace units would allocate houses to them, so there was no hurry for them to buy their own house. It was good enough to have a place to stay and they did not worry about such property issues at all.