2013-04-15nytimes.com

``Home prices look remarkably stable when corrected for inflation. Over the 100 years ending in 1990 -- before the recent housing boom -- real home prices rose only 0.2 percent a year, on average. The smallness of that increase seems best explained by rising productivity in construction, which offset increasing costs of land and labor.

Of course, home prices are likely to be much higher in 2023 when measured in nominal dollars -- those that aren't inflation-adjusted. Inflation is the deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve, with a target rate now of 2 percent a year as measured by the personal consumption expenditure deflator, or about 2.4 percent on the Consumer Price Index. At those rates, nominal prices will be roughly 25 percent higher, over all, in a decade. ''



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