By The Tim on January 14, 2013
Since we looked at the affordability index last week, Let’s have an updated look at the “affordable home” price chart. In this graph I flip the variables in the affordability index calculation around to other sides of the equation to calculate what price home the median household income could afford to buy at today’s mortgage [...]
Posted in Counties, Statistics | Tagged affordability, big-picture, fundamentals, Interest Rates
By The Tim on January 10, 2013
It has been a while since we had a look at the local affordability index, and now that we’ve got all of the data for 2012, it seemed like a good time to take another look. As a reminder, the affordability index is based on three factors: median single-family home price as reported by the [...]
Posted in Counties, Statistics | Tagged affordability, big-picture, fundamentals, Interest Rates
By The Tim on November 8, 2012
A reader emailed me with a question about home prices compared to gold: Any easy way for you to compare Case-Shiller home prices to gold? I have a hunch prices have dropped much more dramatically than we realize, as our USD goes in the tank. Maybe Goldman’s 22% drop prediction was closer if the nasty [...]
Posted in Counties, Features, Statistics | Tagged affordability, gold, inflation, NWMLS, original research, roller_coaster, stair step, Statistics
By The Tim on September 21, 2012
Since we looked at the affordability index yesterday, Let’s have an updated look at the “affordable home” price chart. In this graph I flip the variables in the affordability index calculation around to other sides of the equation to calculate what price home the median household income could afford to buy at today’s mortgage rates [...]
Posted in Counties, Statistics | Tagged affordability, big-picture, fundamentals, Interest Rates
By The Tim on September 20, 2012
In the comments on yesterday’s post, reader “Topdog” posed the following question: So the Fed stops playing funny money, lets interest float to market rate. Lets say a reasonable 3% premium plus the 3% inflation premium which puts high quality new mortgages at about 6%. How does that affect buyer affordability? That’s a question we [...]
Posted in Counties, Statistics | Tagged affordability, big-picture, fundamentals, Interest Rates
By The Tim on June 29, 2012
A reader pointed out to me this week that it has been three years since I updated the long-term chart of King County home prices back to 1950. So, by request, here is an update to that chart as of May, along with the affordability index over the same time period. In the first quarter [...]
Posted in Counties, Features, Statistics | Tagged affordability, inflation, NWMLS, original research, roller_coaster, stair step, Statistics, Tytler
