Housing: price-to-rent ratio

In October 2004, Fed economist John Krainer and researcher Chishen Wei wrote a Fed letter on price to rent ratios: House Prices and Fundamental Value. Kainer and Wei presented a price-to-rent ratio using the OFHEO house price index and the Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER) from the BLS. The following graph uses the First American data … … [and] suggests that house prices are still a little too high on a national basis. But it does appear that prices are much closer to the bottom than the top.