Bubblicious
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sandronsky190206.html
Bubblicious: Looking at the U.S. Real Estate Market
by Seth Sandronsky
Many eyes are on the U.S. real estate market. “During the past five years, home prices have risen at an annual rate of 9.2 percent,” according to the 2006 Economic Report of the President released on February 13. Was this growth normal? We need the historical context of home price increases to answer this question.
The media coverage of the report sidestepped the historical context altogether. For the relevant historical data on recent home prices, we turn to economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.
“Through the post-war period 1950 to 1995, house prices grew at approximately the same rate as the prices of other goods and services,” Baker wrote last July.
Responses