Monetoscope

Issue No. 02Building

Issue No. 02 · Housing over a centuryBuilding

What a house actually cost.

Type in a house price and two years. We will tell you what it comes to at home prices, and what it would be if houses had only kept up with inflation, using Robert Shiller's U.S. home price index back to 1890.

Oct 5, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026

House price calculator

Home price data runs from 1890 to Jun 2026.

At home prices

If it had only kept up with inflation

Home prices outran general prices by 108%.

Home prices · Shiller indexInflation · BLS CPI-U
  • To: 2026 is not over yet, so this uses Jun 2026, the latest available month.
02 / Chart

A house, with inflation taken out

Prices of almost everything rise over time, so a raw home price chart mostly shows inflation. This one divides home prices by the Consumer Price Index, the same series behind the Issue No. 01 calculator. What is left is how much more, or less, a house costs compared with everything else.

Robert J. Shiller, U.S. home price data for Figure 3.1 of "Irrational Exuberance" (3rd ed., 2015), as updated by the author, nominal home prices divided by the Consumer Price Index from Issue No. 01, rebased so 1890 = 100. Above 100, a house costs more in real terms than in 1890; below, less.
Show the data as a table
YearReal index (1890 = 100)Nominal index
1890100.03.56
189190.23.21
189291.83.27
189396.93.41
1894118.03.97
1895109.83.60
189695.13.12
189799.33.22
1898105.83.43
1899101.13.28
1900114.23.75
190194.63.15
1902110.23.71
1903109.53.77
1904113.23.94
1905100.43.45
1906116.54.10
1907123.04.52
1908113.44.08
1909112.13.99
1910115.94.31
1911113.34.21
1912115.34.37
1913112.94.37
1914115.94.53
1915105.34.16
1916106.94.56
191792.94.65
191883.74.94
191980.45.44
192076.25.96
192183.25.83
192289.95.91
192389.65.99
192489.86.01
192592.36.32
192687.66.06
192785.85.84
192888.65.92
192986.85.80
193085.05.55
193185.85.10
193285.24.57
193386.44.39
193486.34.52
193592.64.96
193694.25.12
193793.35.25
193894.45.21
193994.55.14
194097.05.31
194184.64.86
194278.85.03
194382.85.60
194494.96.53
1945103.77.30
1946118.89.06
1947126.010.99
1948118.911.21
1949120.611.22
1950123.411.63
1951121.312.33
1952124.212.88
1953137.214.32
1954137.114.42
1955138.114.47
1956136.414.51
1957135.714.91
1958133.815.13
1959132.815.11
1960131.315.20
1961130.615.27
1962130.815.44
1963130.415.60
1964130.715.85
1965130.416.06
1966128.916.33
1967126.816.56
1968125.117.03
1969126.418.14
1970129.119.60
1971130.520.68
1972131.721.53
1973126.621.98
1974122.623.64
1975122.325.73
1976124.127.62
1977130.530.92
1978139.735.62
1979144.741.10
1980139.945.10
1981134.947.96
1982129.748.95
1983129.550.46
1984130.052.84
1985132.855.89
1986141.960.83
1987149.166.26
1988153.871.14
1989155.775.51
1990150.576.94
1991142.575.93
1992139.176.33
1993137.077.41
1994137.179.47
1995135.980.99
1996134.982.81
1997135.985.32
1998141.390.10
1999147.996.37
2000155.6104.78
2001163.4113.19
2002173.8122.29
2003185.8133.74
2004203.7150.46
2005224.9171.78
2006232.7183.48
2007221.9179.94
2008194.8164.06
2009177.0148.55
2010169.6144.67
2011158.3139.24
2012157.0140.99
2013169.6154.52
2014177.9164.68
2015185.7172.17
2016192.7180.91
2017199.6191.39
2018206.2202.47
2019209.5209.45
2020219.4222.13
2021245.4260.05
2022260.8298.50
2023256.7305.86
2024261.9321.34
2025260.9328.52
2026 (latest month)257.0336.66
03 / Sources

Where every number comes from

Verified by ECHO. 512 checks run on Oct 5, 2026 against S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index (CSUSHPINSA), via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, dataset 2026-06. All matched within the stated tolerance.

Home prices

1890 to Jun 2026

Robert J. Shiller, U.S. home price data for Figure 3.1 of "Irrational Exuberance" (3rd ed., 2015), as updated by the author. Nominal Home Price Index.

Retrieved 2026-10-05 (download from shillerdata.com; copy: data/raw/shiller-fig3-1.xls). Source

What the index is built from

No single survey covers more than a century of house prices, so the index joins several, each covering the years below.

  • 1890 to 1933: Grebler
  • 1934 to 1952: Five-CityMedian
  • 1953 to 1974: PHCPI
  • 1975 to 2026: S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index (S&P/CoreLogic/Case-Shiller)
Inflation

The same CPI as Issue No. 01

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, all items, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted from 1913, dataset 2026-08. Years before 1913 use the reconstructed series and are labelled.

What a house price index measures

It tracks the price of the same kinds of homes over time, not the average sale. Homes today are larger and better equipped than in 1900, and the index tries to hold that constant, so it is not the price of a typical new house in each year.

04 / Roadmap

How this issue was built

4 of 6 roles complete

  1. CHRONOSComplete

    Sources and structures the historical data

    Shiller's U.S. home price index, 1890 to June 2026, downloaded from shillerdata.com with its source for every year recorded.

  2. NEXUSComplete

    Data pipeline, API, caching

    Refresh script reads Shiller's spreadsheet directly and writes a versioned dataset (v2026-06), checked for gaps and ordering.

  3. SIGMAComplete

    Calculation logic and edge-case rules

    Home price and inflation comparison over the same years, annual averaging, latest-month and clamping rules, covered by unit tests.

  4. IRISComplete

    UX/UI and interface polish

    House price calculator card and an inflation-adjusted home price chart with keyboard reading and a table view.

  5. HERMESIn progress

    Launch copy and distribution channel

    Headline, dek and section copy drafted.

  6. ECHOIn progress

    Verification, QA and issue close-out

    Checked against S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller on FRED: 474 months and 38 annual changes match. Build and live check pending.

05 / Next issues

Staked out, not started

  1. Issue No. 03Wages vs. InflationNot started
  2. Issue No. 04Markets over 100 yearsNot started