That's a mind-boggling anecdote. As an example, Crate and Barrel are known to make good, high-quality couches, and many of them are far less than $5000
I went to try to see conclusively if you were correct. A pretty basic sofa at C&B is $1,800 - $2,000. In 1990 you could buy a basic Bassett sofa at J.C. Penney for $599 [1] -- $1407 in 2023 dollars. Furniture from Sears and Penney's (regardless of whether it was fashionable) was of fine quality, in that it held up for decades. I know because we had furniture like this in our home at the time.
So this tells me that the price for a sofa (that is made domestically and not slapped together from particle board, a half inch of foam, and about 4 springs) has gone up by 25-30%. And I think you're saying that therefore, this isn't an utterly crazy price hike. I'd agree it's modest.
Thing is, I think what's changed is demographics. In 1990, a LOT of people bought furniture at a department store or furniture store. They could afford it, but also here's the interesting part: It was much more rare then to find a $250 sofa. If that was your budget, you just bought a used good sofa and you probably got a better product. When super cheap everything appeared in the late 90s, it drove out the good manufactured goods, and many of the stores that sold those good items. People felt like buying the quality of things they used to buy would be extravagant, since they could buy an IKEA or Walmart version for less than half, and also, many families started to be worse off financially than their parents' generation had been, adding to their feelings of frugality. Unfortunately, this crap is so shoddy in most cases that it's actually more expensive when you factor in its lifetime.
Bedbugs had been suppressed to the point that you were very unlikely to ever encounter them 30-50 years ago. That's no longer the case.
I wouldn't even consider a piece of used upholstered furniture today, regardless of price or product quality.
That used sofa today represents a large risk to my wallet, property and health that it mostly didn't in the peak pesticide era.
Poor people are aware of the same - and if possible they too will opt for the shit-tier couch they can afford vs running that risk with a nice used one that would have been valued the same 30 years ago.
I think you and the parent likely have different standards of quality. Crate and Barrel makes nicer couches but they're still made the same way with the same materials as what you get from Value City Furniture. They're still engineered wood, polyblend fabric and filling, and "genuine" leather.
It's really hard to find anything non-antique that uses better materials or craftsmanship. They do exist and I own a few pieces but the prices for such things will make you blush. There's no middle anymore where you forgo labor intensive details like hand-carved detailing, complex bends and shapes, hand stitching, embroidered patterns, or fancy internal mechanisms but keep the "can still last generations" build quality for somewhat reasonable prices.
* Frames are benchmade with hardwood that's kiln-dried to prevent warping
* Hardwood legs
* Polyfoam seat cushions wrapped in fiber-down blend and encased in downproof ticking (is this "bad"? I think they're plenty comfortably and haven't shown any significant wear in the past four years)
My friend bought a townhouse in Seattle just a few months ago, and bought a C&B (very nice) couch for it at around $3000. It was delivered within a week or two of ordering, so I believe they're available.
When I bought my couch in late 2019 it was also delivered within a couple of weeks.
Are you custom ordering something? I believe that common configurations ship immediately, but any kind of customization requires that multiple-month lead time.
