Historical Stats and the Housing Crisis

I was just going back through  my files, and have statistics from 2003.  The format was not nearly as good as they were after I got involved with SOMLS and created a better format in 2008.  

So I find it hard to compare what is going on prior to 2008.

But I did find a 10 year comparison done in 2007.  

In 1998 the median sales price in Ashland was $166,000.  In 2007 it was $426,000.  That is a 250% increase in 10 years. INSANE!  25% increase per year. 

The Median last month in Ashland was $435,000. So now for the last 20 years, the increase is only 12.5% a year. 

So let’s compare that to the median income in Oregon. 

In 1998 the median income in Oregon was $39,000. That was up all the way to $60,000 by 2017. That is a 65% increase over 12 years, or 5.4% a year. 

So home prices increased at 25% a year while income increased at 5.4% a year.  There is no wonder that there is a housing crisis.