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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 188 -- Housing Appreciation, 2004.

Regional Housing Bubbles-

House prices recently have tended to rise rapidly in the East and West... Nevada house prices rose 34 percent in 2004, followed by Hawaii, 25 percent; California, also 25 percent; and the District of Columbia, 23 percent. In contrast, Texas experienced an increase of only 4 percent.

The increases are not limited to regions of the U.S., either:

Since 1999... home prices have jumped more than 110 percent in the U.K. and nearly 60 percent in the United States.

Part of this is demand. But don't forget supply. Unlike, say, England or New England, Texas has a lot of room. And it's relatively easy and inexpensive to buy up some mostly flat farmland near a city and build a few thousand homes.

So, even as Texas has grown rapidly in recent years, there has not been the same drastic home price appreciation that some parts of the country have seen.

Will the housing bubble burst, as the prognosticators predict, causing an economic meltdown?

Maybe in ridiculously overvalued areas on the coasts. But not where land is plentiful and cheap and available (much of the country).

Source:
The Dallas Fed.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Entitlement Spending.

Posted by Will Franklin · 17 October 2005 10:26 AM

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