May 9, 2008

Historical home prices by state

Previously I posted about How fast do homes appreciate historically? and then I added some more on the topic with More on historical home appreciation. In summary between the two posts I found that historical home appreciation is in the 4% rate. However that is a national figure covering the average for the entire USA.

I found this Census page with Home values per state for the 1940 to 2000 census. From that I can figure the average annual appreciation per state over the 60 year period from 1940 to 2000. The values per state are:

New Mexico 8.9%
Alaska 7.7%
Arizona 7.7%
Colorado 7.6%
Nevada 7.4%
Washington 7.4%
Idaho 7.2%
Arkansas 7.2%
Oregon 7.2%
Utah 7.1%
Montana 7.1%
Louisiana 7.1%
North Carolina 7.1%
Mississippi 7.1%
California 7.1%
Georgia 7.0%
Oklahoma 6.9%
New Hampshire 6.8%
Alabama 6.8%
Tennessee 6.8%
South Dakota 6.7%
Maine 6.7%
Texas 6.7%
Massachusetts 6.7%
Kansas 6.7%
Maryland 6.7%
Virginia 6.7%
Florida 6.6%
North Dakota 6.6%
Wyoming 6.5%
South Carolina 6.5%
Kentucky 6.4%
Hawaii 6.4%
Nebraska 6.4%
USA 6.4%
Minnesota 6.4%
Michigan 6.4%
Illinois 6.3%
Vermont 6.3%
Indiana 6.3%
New Jersey 6.2%
Missouri 6.2%
Iowa 6.2%
Connecticut 6.2%
Wisconsin 6.1%
Rhode Island 6.1%
New York 6.0%
Delaware 5.9%
West Virginia 5.9%
Ohio 5.9%
Pennsylvania 5.8%
DC 5.2%


You can see that there is a pretty wide spread between states. Depending on what state you are in you might have up to 2.5% difference in appreciation compared to the national average. And comparing one state to another the swing is as much as 3.7%.


Furthermore the change in any given decade may vary considerably from state to state. For example in the 1940's prices went up 24% in New Mexico but only 6% in D.C. a variation of 18%. And then in the 1990's the prices rose 8.4% in Oregon but dropped 0.6% in Connecticut. In every decade there was at least a 7% difference between the state with the highest and lowest annual appreciation values.

So if you are looking at trends of home prices, it really makes much more sense to look at the local since there is a pretty significant difference in price trends from one state to another.
Furthermore it really makes most sense to look at the specific city or metro area, but data for that can be harder to come by. I'll see if I can find anything price trends for metro areas.

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