Is today unusual here?

Across New Jersey

Each panel is a county’s home prices against its households’ incomes, year by year, measured against that county’s own usual level, the dashed line. Above it, homes cost more of a year’s income than usual. 3 counties are at or near the highest in their record.

Each year, FHFA’s house price index for the county divided by the Census Bureau’s estimate of its median household income, compared with the middle year of all its years. An index, not dollars: each panel compares a county with its own past only, so two panels say how unusual today is in each, not which county is dearer. The record starts in 1989; years with no income estimate are skipped. All panels share one scale, in percent from the usual level. Each county’s page explains its history in words. More visual stories →