Here’s a chart of housing prices from the NY Times. I’m not entirely sure why it’s so extreme compared to the charts I put up in a previous posting. I suspect part of it is not using a log scale, part is having a much longer time horizon, part is that it’s showing a different index, and finally I suspect that it’s selective about what cities are included; but I still don’t really get it.
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Unlike those other charts this is inflation-corrected. Housing has largely traced the broader rate of wage inflation over the years — as it should, given that it’s always been a major portion of the average person’s income. Anything like housing or food that’s 20-30% of post-tax income naturally is going to have a growth rate that trends towards income growth over an long period — otherwise it would rapidly outgrow the ability of people to pay for it. (Unlike, say, the price of a cup of coffee.) That’s what’s so disturbing about this graph.
I believe that all the charts I have shown, including the Time’s chart are in constant dollars. The housing index charts are constant dollars converted onto the housing index.
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[...] sizes and shapes.
{ 2006 08 30 } New York Times Housing Prices [Ben Hyde](http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/2006/08/housing-prices-part-iii/ ) linked to this interesting NY Times history of housing prices. ![27leon Graph 2 [...]
[...] bigger over time. It would be interesting to see the same graph in price/square feet. (via ben hyde) Posted by admin [...]
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