Oh gosh, I'd unsubscribed from this thread when it turned into a "nyah nyah" contest with an absolute moron.
I'm pretty sure these dollars weren't adjusted for inflation. The loss in value would even be greater.
Besides flawed basic reading skills and an interest in making up your own word definitions, you also have no idea how inflation works.
But you did manage to unexpectedly blunder into the actual answer! Good for you!!
The Schiller data and most of rolled up Zillow "report" data is flawed in that it primarily looks at single family homes in metropolitan areas in bubble regions.
This is one of those cases where you need to stop staring at these comparable sales like a stock ticker tape and do a little prairie dogging.
The majority of homes in the US arent in suburban San Francisco, Boston or Miami. They're $110k-130k homes whose value is primarily the construction cost minus wear and tear/depreciation plus a small land value and adjustments for desirable/undesirable features.
There isnt a $250k land/location value bundled in. There was no bubble and no crash.
Building materials have gone up more than 10% since 2006. Labor costs have dropped around 3.5% since then. So your cost today to build a bog standard house in Tulsa, Grand Junction, Jacksonville NC, Champaign and Mobile has gone up around 3-4% a year, every year.
Granted theres a difference between value and current cost. In some bubble areas you're contending with a backlog of foreclosures and unsold new homes, which temporarily is depressing the cost. Until that backlog is removed.
But in most of the US, outside the bubble regions, there are no mass foreclosures. There are no empty subdivisions. So if you sell your house today it'll be worth more simply because the intrinsic cost of building one just like it on the next street over has been driven up by inflations effect on material costs.
For the rest of the country, outside of the small number of morons who paid ~2x the value of a home in some commutaburb an hour away from a bubble city and the idiots who refinanced their house to 100% value in 2004/5 with an adjustable rate partial interest only loan and builders who built 200 homes right at the end of the bubble...things are just ducky.
Either their homes have appreciated against new construction cost, or their value will be restored once the backlogs of distressed properties are resolved.
Some areas and some people screwed themselves and this is all the media wants to squawk about. The victims and the victimizers, the people losing their homes.
The reality is a little better, and its only going to improve.
Lastly, Siamamerican...if your primary purpose going forward is to continue to engage in a pissing contest with me, may I point out that this has historically not been a very rewarding activity and that you're also not very good at it?
Perhaps you'd like to reassess your strategy and try a different one?