Renters: Relax, the Market is Coming Your Way (NYT 4-22)

wow, the charts are pretty stark. On a home price/median income basis New York is the most overpriced real estate by far.

San Fran's not too far behind.

The increase in the ratio from 1979 is 146% for New York versus 65% for San Fran

We're #1!

Great interactive chart. Thanks for posting, malthus.

Current home price to median income levels is what I was referring to. 6.6 v. 6.9. But yes, New York has been kicking it.

Doesn't this just sum up denial...

"In 2006 and early 2007, the official housing statistics were still showing that house prices were holding up. But that was largely because so many sellers were refusing to sell. The auctions, made up mostly of foreclosed homes, showed the truth: house values were starting to plummet in many places."

Anybody notice that some cities (like Vegas) are back to 1970s numbers?

"If nothing else, this sales pitch certainly had chutzpah. It combined the old bubble-era notion that house prices always rise over time"

Wouldn't that be true when looking at EVERY bubble EVER?!?!?

If you go through a period of excess valuation of anything, that would mean you hit a peak... making it simply definitional that it would be higher than all previous periods...

I guess this is why so many people got suckered.

So do we revert to the 1979 ratio or stabilize at some higher multiple, closer to SF's historical multiple?

Shiller shows it always comes back to the mean. Every other time.

We've got a long way to go.