Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Tag: US rents vs shelter CPI

  • Shelter CPI is a lagging indicator

    Charlie Bilello shared this interesting housing chart in his weekly newsletter:

    Shelter is one of the largest components of the CPI index (about a third). And at 7.9% (see above), this is the highest rate of housing inflation since 1982. However, the shelter component — which is largely a combination of rent on a primary residences and the implicit rent that owner occupants would pay if they were renting their homes — has historically been a lagging indicator. Apparently it has something to do with the way that it’s calculated. So for this reason, the shelter CPI has only increased 14.9% since the start of 2020, whereas home prices nationally increased by about 40% and rents increased by about 20%. It’s also why there appears to be a disconnect (in the above chart) with rents. All of this is to say that we might see shelter jump up a bit further as it continues to record what happened over the last few years.