Stories
Every number in every story is computed from the same public series as the calculator. Some of the stories are about years when not buying won.
Austin, 2012: the year "let’s wait and see" got expensive
A $300,000 Austin house from 2012 is $772,589 today by the FHFA index. On 20% down, the equity comes to 10.2× the down payment.
Miami, 2006: the seller who was right, for five years
Selling in Miami in 2006 looked genius by 2011, when the index stood 44% below its 2006 average. Then the market spent a decade taking the win back.
Las Vegas: same house, five years apart, two different lives
By the FHFA index, a Las Vegas house bought in 2006 is 1.5× today. The same house bought in 2011 is 3.7×.
The brownstone your parents didn’t buy (New York, 1983)
A $150,000 New York purchase in 1983 is about $1.45M of metro-index value today. It is the family story every borough tells.
San Francisco, 1995: the down payment that became generational
A $250,000 San Francisco purchase in 1995, on 20% down, works out to $1.26M of equity today, 25× the down payment.
Detroit, 2005: the decade the house lost
A 2005 Detroit purchase was still down 24% in 2015 by the metro index. This site prints the losing years too.
The index-fund rebuttal (Waterbury, CT, 1988)
Same $60,000 in 1988: the down payment route left $767,976 of equity; an S&P 500 index fund left $3.71M. Sometimes the boring answer wins.
Houston, 1983: buying at the top of an oil boom
A 1983 Houston purchase fell 22% into the oil bust and didn’t see its price again until 1998, 15 years of waiting.
House figures are estimates for the whole metro market, from the FHFA index. Not financial advice.