Measuring Prices

Case-Shiller measures the price of the same home over time.

Median and average prices have no consistency on number of rooms, square footage, location, amenities, lot size, or quality of construction.

Median and average price are also skewed by a slowing number of transactions heavily influenced by price-insensitive buyers.

Although median price is a poor measure, the rising direction is consistent with Case-Shiller reporting.

The problem with Case-Shiller is timeliness. We are heading into September and Case-Shiller is just reporting June data.

And that data represents transactions from a couple months prior.

Year-Over-Year Index Measures

The average person will look at the above charts and see inflation.

Every member of the Fed plus the typical economist will look at those charts and not see inflation because they have been trained not to see it.

In the blind eyes of the Fed and economists in general, home prices are not a consumer expense, nor are property taxes on home prices.

To this group of brainwashed economists only consumer inflation matters, and home prices are a capital expense, not a consumer expense.

Thus, home prices do not count as inflation and the Fed ignores them.