Housing cycles / USA
United States
Real residential property prices, BIS index, 1970 to 2026-Q1. The index is rebased to 2010 = 100 for United States alone, so its level says nothing next to another country’s. Growth and drawdown are comparable across countries; the level is not.
Real house price index, annual
Annual means of the quarterly real index. A year is plotted only if all four of its quarters are present, so a partial year is dropped rather than averaged over whatever is present. The 2 shaded bands are the Laeven-Valencia banking crises measurable against this index, first year to last year.
Source: BIS residential property prices (selected series) | Laeven and Valencia, Systemic Banking Crises Database (2025 update) Latest real quarter 2026-Q1 = 156.4; highest observed real quarter 2024-Q4 = 161.1. Methodology
Banking crises
Run-up is the real index in the crisis year against five years earlier. Trough is the lowest of the crisis year and the five years after it, against the crisis year itself, so 0.0% means real prices never closed a year below the crisis-year level.
| Crisis | Run-up t-5 to t | Trough vs t | Years to trough |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | +20.2% | -8.0% | 5 |
| 2007 to 2011 | +25.6% | -31.7% | 4 |
Source: BIS residential property prices (selected series) | Laeven and Valencia, Systemic Banking Crises Database (2025 update) Methodology