The Real Estate Roller Coaster

This article was written by Smithee in Real Estate and Home. 8 comments.

I really enjoy good “data visualization”, which is a fancy, but more succinct way of saying “a way to look at information as more than just numbers.”

Last year, before most of us were aware of the “mortgage crisis,” some enterprising individual took a list of average housing prices in the United States since 1890, adjusted them for inflation, and then plotted them as if they were altitudes on a roller coaster ride. Watch the video, and you won’t be so surprised why the housing market took a downturn:

Published or updated July 29, 2008. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.

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About the author

Smithee formerly lived primarily on credit cards and the good will of his friends. He is a newbie to personal finance but quickly learning from his past mistakes. You can follow him on Twitter, where his user name is @SmitheeConsumer. View all articles by Smithee.

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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

Twiggers: INteresting video! Love how it ends with us just kind of dangling off a cliff looking down at history. How fitting.

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SmBizMan: This video has been on youtube for a while. I wish the author would update it to 2008!

I watched this video in 2007 right before I bought a house–and I still bought. Don’t let it scare you away. Buy for the right reasons, not because everyone else is.

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Kyle: I used to love those rollar coaster building games. Do you happen to have access to the raw data? It would be interesting to see the actual number.

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Smithee ♦1,358 (Quarter): I don’t have the raw data, but here is a graph from the same person that did the video.

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Brian: My parents always told me about “Bull”ies… the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Look out below.

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SmBizMan: by the way, before oil dropped $20 a barrel recently, it looked very similar to that chart!

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Andrew: More data to show that buying a house is NOT an investment. You buy a house because you want or need a house, not to make money. (Active real estate developers excluded of course).

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Jesse: I loved the end where the roller coaster turns around and you see just how far it climbed. Chilling almost.

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