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In commenting on my put up yesterday on home affordability, Bruce Corridor brings my consideration to this Supermoney article by Andrew Latham, which states:
…the value per sq. foot has remained fairly steady [from 1978?] proper till 2020. Have a look at the value per sq. foot (inflation-adjusted) for brand new houses within the graph under.
Nicely, we’re not in 2020; to the most effective of my information, we’re in 2025. Even in Latham’s graph, the rise within the inflation adjusted value is 6.5% from 1978 to 2020; it’s 22.5% via 2024.
I don’t have information again to 1978, however I do have information again to 1992. I plot median sq. foot value (indifferent) divided by CPI-ex shelter (so this can be a “relative value” fairly than an actual*), and by median traditional weekly earnings.
Determine 1: Median value sq. foot indifferent homes offered deflated by CPI – ex shelter (blue, left log scale), median value sq. foot indifferent homes offered normalized by median traditional weekly earnings (tan, proper log scale). Median value per sq. foot linearly interpolated from annual information. NBER outlined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded grey. Supply: Census Bureau, and BLS by way of FRED, NBER, and writer’s calculations.
Determine 1 additionally addresses Steven Kopits‘ assertion that I’ve “cherry picked” normalization dates (2012Q1) to intensify the value enhance, and suggests 2019. What I used to be making an attempt to do was to indicate the rise over the home value cycle. Nevertheless, one can plainly see that switching to 2019Q1 as a normalization date doesn’t change the general story that home costs (in sq. toes) have modified considerably. (Because the sequence are plotted on log scales, simply draw an arrow from 2012Q1 and see if the slope adjustments a lot.)
* Shelter is a really giant part of the CPI, so dividing by CPI all city is form of like dividing home costs by, partially, implicit home costs. Therefore, I divide by CPI ex-shelter, which in log first variations approximates the HICP for the USA that Bruce Corridor mentions in his remark.
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