In a nutshell: > The price of the home has risen by 20 percent, so you could just say the cost of housing has gone up 20 percent. But that would be misleading

In a nutshell: > The price of the home has risen by 20 percent, so you could just say the cost of housing has gone up 20 percent. But that would be misleading. Assuming a 20 percent down payment, your original mortgage would have cost $2,502 per month, while the new owner’s mortgage would cost $2,489 per month. The monthly mortgage payment required to own the home actually went down. Falling interest rates have kept houses affordable at inflated prices. Because most housing is purchased with debt, the change reflects the reality that most owners are paying off a mortgage. The change made by government prevents interest rate fluctuations from interfering with the CPI calculation. Over time, the change resulted in less volatility of the CPI, but no major changes when viewed from a multi-year perspective.