What happened to the reasonably priced project car?

I will start this off with a warning that this is a whiney rant. But what happened to the cost of A-Bodies? I got my 69 Dart for $400 in 03. It didn't run but everything was there for it to run and drive except for the fact that cosmetically, it was garbage.

As I drink my coffee and browse through the for sale ad's I cant help but have noticed that within the past year or so, everything has gone way up in price. What typically was a $1500 car is now about $3-5000. I live in the SF bay area where things cost a little more anyways but man! Its out of hand lol.

Did the Coronavirus drive up the pricing for everything? Its crazy that you can't even find a decent A-Body that doesn't have rust issues everywhere and a clear title for less than $3000.

Crazy stuff! Rant over.