Jonathan J Miller, Columnist

Income Inequality Hits the Housing Market

Sales of houses that cost $500,000 and up are the part of the real estate market showing the strongest gains.

March 4, 2015 at 1:00 PM UTC

Jonathan Miller writes about the housing economy and other aspects of real estate. He began a real estate blog, the Matrix, in 2005, and has written a column for Curbed.com. He is co-founder of Miller Samuel, a residential real estate appraisal company, and the commercial valuation firm Miller Cicero.

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Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg

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There's been plenty of talk recently about signs of recovery in the housing market. Rather than think about housing as a single market, it might be helpful to look at housing as many markets based on everything from geography to price to new versus existing.

What I find intriguing is how things are shaping up based on price. It's pretty clear that the fastest growth in new housing is at the high end, where sales are increasing the most. This might be a sign of economic recovery, but more likely it suggests that those in higher income brackets are doing better than average.