7.5% mortgages have been the norm since the 1970s. Here's why they feel less affordable today.

The housing industry got a whole heap of bad news on Tuesday. Housing starts, which are a measure of new construction, plunged in September and were down 7.4% year-on-year. Meanwhile, pending home sales dropped to their lowest level since 2001.

Higher mortgage interest rates are to blame for the cratering numbers. The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate loan is just shy of 7.5%. But that happens to be lower than the average mortgage rate since 1971, which is about 7.67%.

Yet those rates, high by today's standards, didn't lead to a housing affordability crisis like today's. What gives?

In the early ‘90s, Craig Richardson bought his first home for $68,000. “Yeah, my first mortgage rate was 7%,” he said.

Growing up, his parents paid 15%. So his rate felt low. Richardson, who’s an economist at Winston-Salem State University, said if you’re only 30? “You've lived an entire adult life with low interest rates of 2% to 3%.”

That describes Realtor.com economist Hannah Jones. "I am one of the millennials who's like, ‘OK, well, my starter home is going to have to be my forever home.’”

And it’s not just because interest rates are higher. “Home prices have grown much, much faster than incomes,” Jones said.

In the ‘80s, the median home cost about three times the median income. Now, it’s about five times.

“It's much harder to save for a down payment to buy a home today,” Jones said.

And it’s harder to get a loan because credit score requirements have gotten stricter, according to Pew Research’s Tara Roche.

“It is very difficult for moderate score borrowers to access mortgages the way that they used to,” she said.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s there, was confidence there’d be opportunities to refinance, said Jeanna Kenney, a professor of economics at Villanova.

“Rates were high,” she said, “but you sort of believed that they were coming down.”

These days, Kenney said 7% might be as good as it gets.