Someone sent us this S&P Case-Shiller chart of Boston home prices dating back to the late 1980s.
Granted, it only goes up to November 2011 in contemporary times, but it’s definitely close enough to get an accurate historical picture of what’s happened over the years.
The recent housing market plunge was quite real and sharp. But take a look at the early 1990s, after the Massachusetts Miracle bubble popped. Holy price plunge, Batman! Also, in the third chart, notice how prices sure scraped the bottom of the market for a while (about five years) and how long it took for prices to recover from their pre-bubble highs back then (answer: about 13 years).
Of course, for those of us old enough to remember the early ’90s (if dimly), it’s hard not to day dream about what could have been, financially, if one had invested big-time when the market was at its bottom back then. Then again, someone 20 years from now may be looking at a future chart and saying the same thing about today’s prices. Who knows where the market is truly going in the long run?
File under: Holy historical price numbers
