3 ms·
I once owned a townhouse in South Florida. Here are the sale prices over time: 1999 (built): 99,000 2001: 140,000 2005: 309,000 2010 230,000 I drove by it rec
by pjmorris 11y ago
I once owned a townhouse in South Florida. Here are the sale prices over time:
1999 (built): 99,000
2001: 140,000
2005: 309,000
2010 230,000
I drove by it recently, and can say that the square footage hasn't changed. Don't take anecdote for data, only illustration, but my scenario was repeated hundreds of thousands of times in South Florida alone. (Some) houses are getting bigger, but that doesn't explain house prices.
- branchless 11y agoGuess what did get bigger? Bank receptions. The modern day churches. As you note land prices per square foot have increased massively.
- akgerber 11y agoMy parents owned a house in Milwaukee. They paid $30,000 or so for it, in 1980. They sold it for $30,000 or so, in 1988. It's still worth $30,000 or so. This scenario was repeated hundreds of thousands of times in Milwaukee alone. My parents paid $80,000 for a house in 1988. They haven't sold it, but it's probably worth around $200,000 today, which is an increase very slightly higher than the rate of inflation. House prices (or, more significantly, house/land/building-permission bundles) where demand exceeds supply (in the US, generally rich coastal areas with tight zoning) are determined by available credit. House prices elsewhere are determined by marginal construction cost. There are a lot of additional complications, many involving the use of single-family-only zoning and the cost of new construction as an implicit or explicit mechanism of segregation in the fair housing era.