More than likely, that era is gone for good.
“There is no iron law that real estate must appreciate,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist for the real estate site Zillow. “All those theories advanced during the boom about why housing is special — that more people are choosing to spend more on housing, that more people are moving to the coasts, that we were running out of usable land — didn’t hold up.”
Instead, Mr. Humphries and other economists say, housing values will only keep up with inflation. A home will return the money an owner puts in each month, but will not multiply the investment.
via NYTimes.com
[Does this make rental housing more or less interesting? Arguments could be made either way. And of course I am speaking of cash flow properties and not "investment" real estate. When I was buying many years ago it was shocking how many brokers could not understand the difference. - Tim]
