Andrew mellon, Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary, advised the president to "liquidate real estate" as part of a plan to "purge the rottenness out of the system". Eighty years later, America has pretty much followed his advice. House prices have lost nearly all the real gains they notched up in the bubble period (see chart). That makes for a marked contrast with Europe, where prices may be off their peaks but have not lost all their real gains. Why the difference? Many people think that owning a house is a certain moneymaker, but this is not the historical experience. In his recent book "Safe as Houses? A Historical Analysis of Property Prices", Neil Monnery presents data from an array of nations going back (in some cases) several centuries. What he discovers is that real house prices have generally been flat over time, or have increased by at most 1% a year. Rather like gold, then, house prices have been a good store of value rather than an automatic route to riches.
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