Detroit, 2005: the decade the house lost
This is what it looks like when the house loses.
2005→2015, metro index−24%A 2005 house today1.6×Rulewe print that too
Buy a Detroit house in 2005 and by 2015 the metro index said it was worth about 24% less. Ten years of payments, taxes, and a roof, and the asset went backwards. Renting won that decade.
Today the same 2005 purchase stands at 1.6× in nominal terms, back above its 2005 price two decades later, before you count a dollar of the carrying costs. “Real estate always comes back” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
That is why the calculator also works out the rent you paid instead and what the down payment would have done in an S&P 500 index fund. Sometimes the house comes out worst of the three.
House figures are estimates for the whole metro market, from the FHFA index. Not financial advice.