Renting, Buying, and the Joy of Being a Kansas Citian

Google "housing prices" (without the quotes), and the search engine returns over a thousand news stories about bursting bubbles, plummeting prices and tumbling townhomes (alright, I made up that last alliteration).

Here in Kansas City, home prices never did boom the way they did on the coasts. Similarly, they seem to be avoiding the declines seen on the coasts.

Yesterday, I read an interesting analysis of "buy vs. rent" at my favorite macroeconomics blog (don't we all have our favorites?), The Big Picture. Looking at the ratio of home prices to rent costs, the ratio here in Kansas City stayed near the historical average of between 10 and 14, while it skyrocketed to over 30 in the hot markets.

Looks like we missed out on the boom, and we'll miss out on the bust. If real estate speculation is your game, Kansas City must be a boring place to live.