On Aug 21, 2007, at 2:03 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:
>> Nationally, for the century before 1995, house prices on Shiller's
>> reckoning only rose about 1% above the rate ofinflation.
>
> First of all, a century worth of data is useless in this thread.
Eh? I'm saying the last 10 years or so have been anomalous; the norm is 1% annual real appreciation.
>> There's no reason why, over the long term, house prices should rise
>> faster than incomes, is there?
>
> You just said that it did! If rents are going up at inflation and
> home
> values are going up at 1% over that, you should buy a house as soon as
> you can after this event passes.
You're forgetting mortgage interest in this calculation. But in any case, I'm just saying that buying a house isn't going to make you rich, unless you're very lucky and/or clever about time and/or place.
Doug