Median Single-Family Home Price

For some perspective on the all-important US real estate market, today's chart illustrates the inflation-adjusted median price of a single-family home in the United States over the past 42 years. Not only did housing prices increase at a rapid rate from 1991 to 2005, the rate at which housing prices increased -- increased. That brings us to today's chart which illustrates how the inflation-adjusted median home price is currently 42% off its 2005 peak. That's a $112,000 drop. In fact, a home buyer who bought the median priced single-family home at the 1979 peak has actually seen that home lose value (13.7% loss). Not an impressive performance considering that more than three decades have passed. It is worth noting that the median priced home is currently at the bottom of a price range that existed from the late 1970s into the mid-1990s.