[quote=bearishgurl]AN, are these numbers nationwide statistics or for SD County? And what do the numbers in the parentheses mean?

All by themselves, these numbers really mean nothing unless you put the average SFR sold prices for that year next to them. Then list the average size family in that locale during that year. (Remember that the “avg family-size” was larger 40+ yrs ago.) And, just for fun, list the average prevailing (conventional) 30-yr fixed interest rate for that year next to each year.

I maintain that at all times, the AVERAGE price paid for a SFR in a given area was 4-6 times the total gross household income for that area, depending on locale.

And this is still true today in all but the most expensive locales (SD County not being one of them).

It didn’t matter what the prevailing mtg interest rate was or is or whether gas was .34.9 or $3.95.9.

With this census data, are you attempting to infer that life in the US was easier for the “average” parents in the ’60’s thru ’80’s or that the “avg” buyer could buy more house in those eras than you or I could buy today?[/quote]These number are from the census bureau. Go here to do your own data mining: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/. I’m not sure what those number in parenthesis mean. This is the historical data for home price nationally from the Census Bureau as well: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/values.html. Housing went up 53% between 1960-1970 and 266% between 1970-1980 in CA.

What I’m trying to infer is, if history repeats itself, then when we see high inflation, we’ll see higher housing price and higher rent. I don’t know if life was easier or not for average Americans and really, I don’t really care. I don’t care if they can buy more house or not. What I care about is if price will rise like the last time we saw 10%+ mortgage rate and inflation going crazy.