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Friday, January 10, 2014

A lost decade for real estate investment?

For the really big picture, look at this.
Here's some moderately good news, likely to be of interest to local real estate investors.

If you bought a $150,000 home in Idaho Falls ten years ago, it would have been worth $179,745 in the third quarter of 2013. That represents a gain in value of about 20 percent, or 2 percent annually. Not great, but a day in the park compared to Las Vegas.

Here's the bad news: If you bought a $150,000 home anytime between the spring 2006 and the end of 2010, you're still under what would be called the Mendoza Line in baseball. From then until now, it's been an up and down kind of thing.

I'm getting my numbers from the Federal Housing Finance Agency's House Price Index Calculator, a site on which I occasionally like to play. You can go there yourself to get more detailed numbers that might apply to you.

Quarter Q3 2013
Bought Value

Q1 2004 $179,745
Q2 2004 $176,410
Q3 2004 $170,310
Q4 2004 $169,274
Q1 2005 $169,180
Q2 2005 $162,540
Q3 2005 $156,332
Q4 2005 $154,324
Q1 2006 $151,306
Q2 2006 $146,195
Q3 2006 $143,170
Q4 2006 $139,966
Q1 2007 $135,232
Q2 2007 $133,875
Q3 2007 $131,120
Q4 2007 $131,541
Q1 2008 $129,634
Q2 2008 $129,830
Q3 2008 $134,277
Q4 2008 $130,892
Q1 2009 $130,482
Q2 2009 $132,997
Q3 2009 $137,535
Q4 2009 $138,328
Q1 2010 $144,454
Q2 2010 $142,679
Q3 2010 $143,076
Q4 2010 $144,731
Q1 2011 $152,002
Q2 2011 $155,027
Q3 2011 $149,823
Q4 2011 $150,975
Q1 2012 $151,306
Q2 2012 $152,965
Q3 2012 $154,511
Q4 2012 $149,591
Q1 2013 $151,032
Q2 2013 $153,763