On Friday evening, here in Toronto at the Aka Khan Museum, this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded to Indian architect, Balkrishna Doshi. He is 90 and will receive US$100,000, as well as the honor of being the first Indian to receive architecture’s Nobel Prize. This year was also the first year it was awarded in Canada.
Yale economist Robert Shiller - who is famous for his work on speculative bubbles and housing markets - was just awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics.
By way of his Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, he has argued that from 1890 to 2012 home price appreciation in the US (in real terms) has been basically zero. It has been flat:
As a result, he’s been very critical of the notion that homes should even be thought of as an investment. In this interview, he says the following:
“So, why was it considered an investment? That was a fad. That was an idea that took hold in the early 2000’s. And I don’t expect it to come back. Not with the same force. So people might just decide, "Yeah, I’ll diversify my portfolio. I’ll live in a rental.” That is a very sensible thing for many people to do.“