£520 for a Wolverhampton house - or take 10 for £5,200

And that is exactly what someone bought in 1947 - '10 villa residences' in Wolverhampton for the bargain price of just £5,200.

In today's money and accounting for inflation the properties in Ridge Lane, Wednesfield would still have been an incredible bargain at just £19,436.42.

The rock bottom sum was revealed in a fragile copy of the Express & Star from July 17 that year, sent in by reader Pauline Poole, who found two copies of the newspaper during a clear-out of her home in Harrowby Place, Willenhall and said they made for 'fascinating reading'.

The story, headlined £5,200 for Wednesfield investment property, reads: "Ten Wednesfield villa residences sold as investment property in one lot, realised £5,200 when offered for public auction by Dick Fuell at the Star and Garter Hotel, Wolverhampton, last night. They were 28 to 46 (even), Ridge Lane, net annual income from them amounting to £284 16s 8d."

Average annual earnings in 1947 were around £300 meaning the houses would have been much more affordable than they are today.

Anyone looking to purchase one of these homes now would expect to part with anything upwards of £154,000.

And the average price for a house in Wolverhampton is currently £157,562 for a three bedroom home.

According to property website Zoopla, three bedroom home at number 28 Ridge Lane was listed in 2012 for offers in the region of £147,995.

It is currently home to Stacy Richards, aged 36, and her daughter Savannah, aged two and a half.

Miss Richards, who works at The Castle Inn, in Wood End Road, said: "You're telling me they sold for £520 each? That's amazing. My rent is £600 a month.

"Of course that's how it is with inflation. Everything's more expensive than it used to be. But that's an incredible price to buy a house."

The property Miss Richards lives in is rented through a private landlord.

It would originally have been a two-bedroom house but has had another storey put on it with a third bedroom.

Down the road at number 42 are Bob and Stella Hammonds.

The retired couple go out in their garden every day tending to their stunning array of flowers in pots and hanging baskets.

Former M&B Brewery drayman Bob, aged 73, and wife Stella, 71, could not agree on what they paid for the house in 1966 or 1967 but it was either £2,300 or £3,200.

"Even then, that's a lot more than the £520 someone once got it for," said Mr Hammonds.

The couple raised their daughter Debra, aged 52, there.

They married on March 30 1962 and Debra was born exactly nine months later - December 30. Mr Hammonds recalled: "It was a difficult year and a bad winter. I worked on a coal lorry.

"We had a bungalow first and then lived into a flat at William Bentley Court for about 12 months.

That 1947 price is still less than £20,000 in today's money. At the time someone could have taken out a mortgage and paid it off within a few years.

Perhaps we look back with rose tinted lenses, but it seems that home ownership was something once within reach of those on modest incomes. Today, for many it is little more than a dream even for those working full time.

We are now in the era of generation rent where the aspiration of getting on to the housing ladder is impossible for many to realise. The soaring price of a home is one of the great social changes of the past 25 to 30 years.

Margaret Thatcher gave council house tenants the right to buy and David Cameron is intent on extending that to those renting housing association properties. As a nation, however, we have allowed ourselves to see bricks and mortar in terms of investment.

"But we knew the people here and we bought it when Debra was about four."

Mrs Hammonds' mother Alice Rotchell had lived just a few doors down at number 32.

The house the couple bought was owned by a Mr and Mrs Lawson, who moved out and left their son, Peter living there.

That was who then sold it to the Hammonds.

In the 1980s they had an extension put on which gave them more space in the living room and kitchen and covered over the alleyway to the back garden.

Talk of house prices, however, has done nothing to prompt any desire to move.

Mrs Hammond said: "We've never had the house valued because we've never wanted to be anywhere else."

In 1947 the homes the auction at the Star and Garter was on what later became the site of the Imperial Chinese restaurant in School Street. The restaurant closed in 2013 but is going to become the new home for nightclub Gorgeous, currently over the road.