Word: price
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...calculate the ratio, Economy.com starts with the median price of a single-family home sold in a particular metro area, using data from the National Association of Realtors. That number then gets divided by what the average apartment would rent for over the course of a year, a number generated by the real-estate-research outfit Property & Portfolio Research. Since each metro area has its own characteristics - there's a lot more land to build on in Oklahoma City than there is in Oakland, Calif., for example - certain pockets of the country have naturally higher price-rent ratios than...
...Looking at a history of price-rent ratios is one way to tell the story of the housing boom and bust. The average of those 54 metro areas pretty much stayed in the 13-to-15 range from 1983 (when Economy.com's data begins) through 1999. From 2000 to 2001, the ratio started drifting upward, and it really took off in 2002, getting up to almost 25 in late 2005 and early 2006. Since then, the number has fallen, but not yet back to its 15-year average - though that average might be overstating where the ratio will eventually level...
...that translates into actual home-price declines is a little tricky. After all, the price-rent ratio is based not just on home prices but on the cost of rentals too. So to figure out what will happen to home prices, you first have to make some assumptions about what will happen in the apartment market. Property & Portfolio Research does such a forecast, which is how Economy.com parlays price-rent ratios into projected house-price appreciation. Those figures tell us that the housing market remains a lumpy place - were price-rent ratios to return to normal, San Antonio would...
...Palm gave the public a first look at the Pre, its entry in the smartphone race. (Neither price nor release date was disclosed.) Palm's cell-phone operating system was in dire need of an upgrade; the Treo, which once ruled the category, is now a distant fourth behind the Apple iPhone, the RIM BlackBerry and phones running Microsoft's OS. The stylish Pre was a hit with attendees - it has a touchscreen like the iPhone that slides away to reveal a keyboard, and it can run many applications at once, rather than one at a time, which...
...Paying More for Gas, Voluntarily With his proposal for broad new energy taxes, Michael Kinsley gets my vote for insight of the year [Dec. 22]. I don't like high gas prices any more than the next guy, but I would rather put the money to good use in the U.S. than send it to OPEC. The American people have demonstrated beyond a doubt that they can and will get by with less gas if there is a compelling reason in the form of a higher price at the pump. The enormous, unstated side benefit of Kinsley's proposal...