[medvezhenok]

Here is housing: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIHOSNS

House prices are simply bonds tied to rent value and interest rate and affected by certain demographic trends. The all-told carrying costs of a mortgage right now are actually lower than they were 30 years ago, considering inflation (the principal might be higher and you don't get the tailwind of dropping rates to rebalance and whatnot, but it doesn't change the fact that houses are technically more affordable, not less).

Edit: Here's a graph of housing prices when adjusted for inflation & mortgage rates: https://realestatedecoded.com/the-shocking-truth-about-house... (although the down-payment is more unaffordable, yes, but you can generally buy things with as low as 3.5% down)

[dominotw]

> but you can generally buy things with as low as 3.5% down

no way. It is so competitive here that buyers are inundated with all cash offers.

[medvezhenok]

https://accept.inc/ converts your mortgage approval into an all-cash offer. (Edit: looks like that's only for Colorado)

The craziness going on right now is due to several factors: (1) all time low supply due to pandemic restrictions/fears; (2) Work from home transforming housing values (single family homes a lot more appealing if you only work from the office occasionally); (3) Millennials aging into the housing market and boomers holding on to their properties (see 1) - also a lot of stock is now owned by investment companies / pension funds past 2008; (4) Housing is the safest way to take a leveraged short on the US dollar (which a lot of people fearing inflation want to do); (5) Capital flight from other countries like China (though that was more of a factor pre-pandemic) - real-estate is the only industry where anti money laundering provisions are severely watered down / non-existent.

[dominotw]

uh ok. I guess i'll be renting forever :D. But hey govt says inflation is low, so all good.