There is Still No Housing Bubble

Articles about Housing Bubbles are ten a penny at the moment, so I thought it was about time for another salvo in my lonely war against the Bubble Obsessed. When I was lying awake last night, it occurred to me that there is not really enough thought about what constitutes “expensive” or “cheap” when it comes to housing. When talking about an item like bread, we can see that over time the price tends to fall slowly as technology and farming improves, but with occasional spikes when there is some type of supply shock which lowers supply. So it makes sense to talk about when bread is expensive by comparing it to recent history. Fashion items, on the other hand, derive part of their value from their exclusivity, so their price relative to wages stays fairly constant to target a given type of consumer.

Then there are financial assets like the stock market, which make new highs most years, because they are a claim on a fraction of a pie which is growing. Since the housing market also a claim on future earnings, via rent, it too should logically make new highs most years.

It is my contention that housing is more of a luxury good than a commodity, and thus I would expect people to have a reasonably stable preference about what fraction of their income they are prepared to spend on housing. Thus, house prices are expensive, only in so far as they grow more than the total spending (perhaps per capita) in an economy. This makes sense, if my wages grow over time, I would expect to try to move to a better house, and pay more rent. Since, on average, everyone’s wages grow over time, so must house prices. Running to stand still as it were.

The following shows the change in the house price index relative first to NGDP (=total spending), and secondly to the median wage.

Look how stable house prices/median wages have been!!!

 

The first thing to note is how amazingly stable both these measures are over time. Particularly house prices/median wages. It was basically flat for decades. On the housing/nominal spending measure, US housing has never been cheaper! The difference in trajectory is a measure of the fact that median wages have not risen in line with total spending due to declining labour share over the period. It is interesting that prices relative to median wages really did show a marked increase in the 2000s, but that is all but fully unwound, and I look forward to watching house prices going flat relative to median wages for many more decades.

I tried to recreate the same graph for the UK, but FRED seems to only have rental income. However, that is interesting in its own right, so lets look at rental prices vs NGDP and vs the median wage in the UK:

 

Where is that house price bubble again?

This data goes over a much shorter period than the US data above. However, its pretty clear that the cost of renting has been in a reasonably long term decline throughout the nineties. I look forward to watching the cost of renting resume its decade long decline.

Its also interesting that the crash has actually made housing more expensive since it caused wages to fall much faster than house prices. A salutory warning to the Bundesbank and Swedish who seem determined to make the case that you should try to put a lid on house prices by raising rates.

Anyway, the main point is clear – forget the media’s obsession. Housing is cheap by the most important measure – its cost relative to median wages.

Also, if you are a BOE Hawk determined to raise rates to put the break on the housing market, then have another look at the evidence. And then don’t.

PS:If someone can find the data for UK house prices in a handy format somewhere, I will redo the US graph for the UK.