Here is a sad statement on the "lost decade" of the US equity market. The S&P/Case-Shiller Composite-20 Home Price Index, the most commonly used indicator of the US residential housing market, was launched on January of 2000. Since then the housing market has outperformed the S&P500 (although the gap has narrowed considerably recently). The comparison below only includes price appreciation for the housing market. A better comparison of relative performance would be to treat the housing market as an investment property, adding rental income to the price index returns. Such an adjustment would show an even greater underperformance by the equity market.
SoberLook.com
