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Are U.S. Home Prices Reasonable?

The author misses the root cause of the problem despite sharing with the reader the data which makes the problem clear. The problem is the extremely rapid increase in average SFR value from 1999 to 2007. According to the author's own figures average SFR value increased by over 200% in just 8 years. the author's own figures show that it took over 20 years for similar value growth from 1950 to 1972, and 1972 to 1999. Of course, new financial products made it easier to finance the debt portion of the rapidly inflated values but it was the buyers who accepted these new prices as "real" even though the average buyer did not experience a 200% growth in nominal income in 8 years. Clearly if price goes up by more than 200% in 8 years the standard 10 to 20% down payment of purchase price would also be over 200% more.The new debt products came into being because buyers did not have the standard 10 to 20% down payment of these inflated purchase prices yet the buyers demanded a means to purchase and an unregulated Wall Street was happy to supply the mechanism.