More on housing (price) inflation

I have a soft spot for conspiracy theories (like the idea that the Fed is brazenly lying about inflation) but I don’t believe them in my bones unless I can really prove them.

Thanks again to Zillow, we can see housing price inflation in ~3700 neighborhoods (like-on-like) in the US, going back 20 years:

(This is only random 500 neighborhoods—if I tried to chart all 3700 my computer would crash. But you get the idea. All of this is public, if you know where to look.)

Anyway, seems like a Jackson Pollack painting. I wonder what all 3700 neighborhoods’ trend of year-over-year housing prices averages out to?

Chart 1 = y/y average of 3700 neighborhoods, going back 25 years, ignoring NA values

Chart 2 = y/y average of 3700 nabes, last 3 years

Nothing we don’t already know. It’s at a very similar level as the Case-Shiller national home price index, but rising at a notably faster rate than CS.

And obviously, on average, we’re blasting way past anything seen in 2005-2008.

But I’m sure Jerome’s got it all under control!