How're we doing on Home Prices (July 2013)?

By -

The first two measures compare prices to rents and to median income. Doing so, factors out the "nominal" aspect of price-change.

Price-to-Rent ratio: Over a year ago this measure was almost down to the 1990 average. Since then, it has almost flattened out, falling only slightly.

Source: As always the best source for such charts is the Calculated Risk blog.



House Prices to Median Household Income

 Price-to-Income ratio: A very similar pattern here. (Caveat: Chart only up to 2011)


By both these measures, we can see that prices are slightly above their historical average, but only slightly (and way below their boom-time prices). They also seem to be flattening out.

Seems a decent enough time to buy a home.



Debt Obligation Ratio: Instead of price, this measure looks at the monthly payments. Since interest rates are low (they've risen in the last month though), by this measure people are spending a historically low percentage of their incomes on mortgages. Other consumer debt is not high either, by historical comparison.

Again, a decent time to buy. In fact, if one considers interest rates to have bottomed, it's a good time to buy.


Home ownership rate: This is the one measure of these four that is not so great. Though it is off its peak, it is not down to historical levels.

In other words, there is no huge "pent up demand" for homes.




Summary: Home prices could drop a bit it more while bottoming out. However, it seems a reasonable time to buy, base on "U.S. averages", if one plans to keep the house for many years. Buffett and Schiller have been saying so for about a year, and they're pretty savvy on this topic. The numbers above support them.

Caveat and Disclaimer: It's said that "all real estate is local". All the graphs above are national averages; local situations can vary quite widely. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country Shares of World GDP

By -
Image
Here's a chart of world GDP, broken down by country share. ( HT: Carpe Diem ). Careful with the x-axis, it is not at all to scale! The basic idea is that India and China had large shares pre-industrial revolution, after which Europe rose. The U.S. shoots up, to over 40% of world GDP by 1950. Then, Japan begins to grow in the 1960s, and China in the 1980s. Suppose countries end up with GDPs proportionate to their populations. What would that picture look like? I've added a bar to the right, showing the break-down of world-population. Look at the U.S. squished down, with less that 400 million out of a world population of over 7,000 million. The biggest change is in the previously un-noticed 'rest of the world". If Africa, the Middle East and so on moved toward freedom, that could be the story of the century.  What if they do not? Here's a chart with a new assumption. Suppose the "rest-of-world" does not increase its relative s
Read more

von Mises on the Quantity Theory of Money

By -
Reading von Mises a while ago, I was surprised to see him speak against the Quantity theory of Money, but what he said made a lot of sense. A recent Facebook comment sent me back looking for the source, and I decided to blog a few choice quotes, because others may find it interesting. My summary of von Mises's position is as follows: The supply of money is an important factor in its value. This is the element of truth in the Quantity Theory However demand for money is the other factor. The quantity theory gives short shrift to demand for money. (One must look to individual decision-making processes and their objective context to understand the demand for money. One cannot start with the aggregate demand for money.) Even if supply were the only factor, it is wrong to assume the value of money will change in direct proportion to the change in supply It is also wrong to assume that an increase in supply of money changes all prices generally and similarly A good theory o
Read more

U.S. Economy: Federal Debt- How big is it?

By -
Image
( Updated: Dec 2012 ) Lots of numbers:  Trying to get a clear picture of U.S. government debt can be frustrating. The government owes: 60% of GDP : bonds owed to private entities , both foreign and domestic 100% of GDP : if we add bonds owed to the government-itself (e.g. Social Security "trust fund", Federal Reserve) 400%+ : if all Fed promises to social security and medicare recipients are met (they won't be) [Note: the GAO claims that adding another 2% (of payroll) to the current 13% payroll tax would keep social security funded for more than 70 years!] A snapshot: The U.S. government (officially) owes about US $16 trillion to the public, plus to the Fed, plus to the "trust funds".  The GDP of the U.S. is approximately $16 trillion. (Both these were about $15 Tr. last year.) To put this in perspective:  adding up the assets of everyone in the U.S. and subtracting liabilities, we get a "net worth" that adds up to about $ 64 trillion ($5
Read more