Real Estate Roller Coaster
Was just chatting about NYC real estate at lunch after which I came upon this video of US home prices (adjusted for inflation) plotted as a roller coaster (via boingboing). It starts in 1890 and it’s pretty awesome, you can see how the momentum from the downward drop from the 1895 peak pretty much takes you to 1940, and then you reach the late 90’s where there’s that feeling in your stomach you get when you’re getting on the rollercoaster and it’s pulling you up to that first monstrous peak? Yeah, that’s the end of the graph, kinda makes you think.
Now I don’t know how scientifically accurate my gut is in terms of analyzing rollercoaster charts, but it seems to me that there’s gonna be a big plunge sometime in the future. I wonder what Tufte would have to say about rollercoaster charts.
