[jpdaigle]

Wouldn't it make sense for the basket of goods used to compute CPI to try to blend the impact of rents (which are included) with "affordability" of buying a house (maybe measured as the carrying costs of an average property per month, which would exclude principal payments)?

Otherwise, because rents and house prices don't always move in lockstep, it's hard to measure the buying power of a dollar over time.

When thinking about purchasing power over time or between different cities, I often think of it as "assume I'm buying 1/180th of an average house in that city each month" as part of a representative basket of goods.