Monday, August 11, 2008

Hardest Drinking U.S. Cities... and Housing?










Interesting chart you say, but how can we use this for a true economic purpose...

How about we compare the percent of those in cities that occasionally drink 5+ beverages in a sitting (not that there's anything wrong with that) to the year over year drop in home values? We have the following eight cities as data points (both heavy drinking cities and data from Case-Shiller):
  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Cincinnati
  • Cleveland
  • Detroit
  • Portland
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
What does our completely unreliable, lack of enough data points, should probably ignore scientific experiment show us?


There is a negative correlation (cities with more 'frequent "heavy" drinkers' have experienced greater declines in their home values, all else equal).

So the lesson learned? Well, besides an investor base that may or may not have made their decision to buy under the influence or a group that is possibly drinking just to get over the sorrow of an investment gone bad, it means absolutely nothing. Please do with this info what you should do with the advice from a person who just went out and had 5+ drinks... ignore it.

Source: Forbes

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