[Eagles Talon IV]

The increased price of homes, first of all is regional and confined to the northeast, west coast and Fla. More Americans own homes today then at any time in history and the reason is simple, interest rates are at a historical low and when buying a house the monthly payment determines if it is plausible or not. In 1968 I bought my first house and the rate was 6%. Almost 40 years later the rate is actually lower. I believe if you use an inflation calculator you will find that wages have gone up since then by approx a factor of 8 and RE prices, excepting in the aforementioned areas of the country have increased somewhat less to about the same. Meanwhile many other things have dramatically declined in price, as I have mentioned. Gasoline, inflation adjusted from 1960 would sell at $1.96 ($2.40 in the area I used to live and where I pulled the original price for 1960 of .30 per gallon.) which is pretty close to where it is today with the exception of a few extreme places such as Cal, Boston, NYC and the usual places you would expect to be gouged.

[ninenot]

The increased price of homes, first of all is regional and confined to the northeast, west coast and Fla.

Two days ago the Milwaukee paper quoted Wisconsin officials as saying that the average price of a home in Wisconsin went up 10%+ in the last 12 months.

Your "statistics" are plain, flat, wrong.

[ninenot]

National stats:

Unrelenting demand in most locales is pushing resale housing to new volume and price peaks, the trade group reports show. Second-quarter sales are up 4.6% nationally...vs. a year earlier, on prices that have climbed 13.6%.... (http://www.jsonline.com/homes/buy/aug05/348904.asp)

Locally, Milwaukee housing is up 9.6% last 12 months, Madison (WI) up over 13%, same period.

[N3WBI3]

first of all is regional and confined to the northeast, west coast and Fla

Ant the upper mid west (il, wi, mn, mi, ...) And Texas, And urban areas in the lower midwest...

More Americans own homes today then at any time in history and the reason is simple, interest rates are at a historical low and when buying a house the monthly payment determines if it is plausible or not.

Well see how many still own when the interest rates on stupid ARM's goes up. People are buying houses they can not afford with almost no money down..

I notice all the dates youre mentioning are more than 20 years ago.. not the 'about 15' which started this whole thing..