• 777 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 778 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 779 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 1,179 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 1,184 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 1,186 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 1,189 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 1,189 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 1,190 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 1,192 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 1,192 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 1,196 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 1,196 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 1,197 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 1,199 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 1,200 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 1,203 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 1,204 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 1,204 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 1,206 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
Is The Bull Market On Its Last Legs?

Is The Bull Market On Its Last Legs?

This aging bull market may…

Another Retail Giant Bites The Dust

Another Retail Giant Bites The Dust

Forever 21 filed for Chapter…

What's Behind The Global EV Sales Slowdown?

What's Behind The Global EV Sales Slowdown?

An economic slowdown in many…

  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

How to Buy Your Kids a House

I don't have a crystal ball, but I'll bet I can tell you how much a house will cost in five years.

UBS released some interesting research last month on how much gold it takes to buy the average-priced home in the U.S. I put the data to a chart, and it's quite revealing.

How many ounces of Gold does it take to buy a house?

What's interesting is that as much as house prices have fallen and as much as gold has risen, today's ratio is still above the historical average. You can see we're at the same number today as 1970, and yet look where it was 10 years later when gold peaked.

Here's another interesting observation: the ratio was 100 during both high inflation (1980) and high deflation (1930). The connection between house prices and gold prices during economic extremes seems awfully compelling.

So, if gold peaks and real estate bottoms in about five years, then a house will cost you about 100 ounces of gold in 2015. Maybe it will take ten years, but the point is, I think we can count on the ratio moving lower this decade, and probably significantly so. Even for the modest budget, 100 ounces almost sounds manageable.

Think gold's too volatile to use as a savings vehicle? Better reconsider that assumption, because we're convinced a third dynamic will be at work: a falling dollar. Ergo, you can sock away lots of cash for your offspring, but if it's denominated in dollars, it won't buy them as much as gold will. Think about it: if gold doubles, that means your dollars will have lost a significant amount of purchasing power.

The fine print here, of course, is that you sell when the gold price is high, and that you pay the tax on the sale. But I would counter that argument by saying that gold is probably not stopping when it doubles from today's levels.

If we're right about the direction of real estate - down - and Doug Casey is correct in his projection for the gold price, then I think I've got a solid plan to buy my kids a house.


And if you want to start on that home savings plan, I arranged for some seriously discounted bullion in the current issue of Casey's Gold & Resource Report, which you can check out risk-free here...

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment