Just before I found Piggington, I had raised the rent on a rental property (purchased Sept 2003). I was upside down about $300/month and moved the rent up 10% ($200/month). I figured houses had gone up so much, rents must be flying. Well, the tenant surprised me when he complained about it and pointed out several similar houses he could rent at a lower price. Hmmmm. That didn’t sit well with me.
Then, I found Piggingtnon. A combination of three of Rich’s charts and that renter’s complaint did it:
1) Inflation adjusted median housing price
2) Median house price vs. Rent
3) The number of houses vs. population
The meteoric rise represented by that first chart was rather stunning.
The renters’ complaint and the second graph went hand-in-hand.
This last graph really sealed it because the mainstream media always talked about the housing shortage and I thought it was real.
I contacted Rich about this last graph and asked him to blow it up. We changed it around a little to plot a housing-to-population ratio and it became apparent to me that there was no housing shortage at all. That’s when I knew.
That April, I cleaned up the rental property to sell and it closed Aug. 2005.
After seeing how data contradicted “public knowledge” I paid closer attention to the data and have ever since.
