[zzzzzzzza]

I think that looking at avg house appreciation is probably not a very good way to measure things, since there are large swaths of empty land and then a few hot spots. What's the average return of urban real estate? The average return of urban real estate by state? Now those numbers, would probably be interesting.

[cpitman]

There are separate Case-Shiller Indexes for 20 large metro areas, as well as composite indexes for the 10 or 20 largest metro areas.

For the 10 largest metro areas (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPCS10RSA), the annual returns are the following. Interesting to note that nationally home values are over their 2006 peak values, but that in the 10 largest metro areas home values are only about even with the previous peak.

  10 Years: 3.8%
  20 Years: 4.7%
  30 Years: 3.6%

Alternatively, if you look at just San Francisco (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SFXRSA):

  10 Years: 7.8%
  20 Years: 5.7%
  30 Years: 4.8%