[Nachum]

The list, ping

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[TSgt]

It just seemed appropriate.

[throwback]

This can't be because I still see 25 year olds buying $450k houses on HGTV every night.

[Steely Tom]

Huh. 2003. Why 2003? Why not 2004? Or 2005?

How about 2006? Why not 2006? Or 2007?

Why not 2008? That was the year the recession officially started right? The year the real-estate bubble popped?

Oh, wait. I know.

It's because housing prices in 2003 weren't as high as they were in subsequent years. The AP is cherry picking a year that fell before the housing collapse, and they had to go back to 2003 to find one that had prices lower than their cherry-picked sample shows today! Of course!

But, by that logic, they could have gone back to... I don't know... how 'bout 1940? In 1940, the median home price in the US was... I have it here... $30,600! And that price has been adjusted to the 2000 dollar!

Just think of it! Compared to 1940, why, Obama has made every homeowner almost a millionaire!

[NVDave]

This is actually good. It hurts, but it is necessary.

If we accept the data that there was no organic household earnings increases in the ‘00’s and that consumers spent debt, not income, then we need to basically unwind the housing asset class to pre-2001 levels, when the Fed started to inject money into the economy at absurd levels.

[I still care]

In the Tampa area they’ve been below that point for quite a while.

I know, I bought my house then.

[elpadre]

Just before the real estate crash a few years ago because of sub-prime loans and a corrupt fannie mae/freddie mac, I had been thinking about and sharing my concerns about something else. My concern was with what appeared to be overbuilding and a saturation of homes, many of which were spec houses. Developers were buying up farm land and building. At the beach every piece of unoccupied land was being built upon and rentals of the old timers began to fall off. Now bankruptcies are rampant. When they report 13% of homes are unoccupied I wonder how many fall into the category above.

[Poundstone]

Here in Northern Virginia (Washington DC Metro area), house prices are steadily climbing. Fortunately we bought our house ten years ago. I’ve got at least 350K in equity, conservatively.