The Relationship of Housing Prices and Building Costs in Los Angeles, 1900–1953*
Abstract * Much of the material contained in this article is derived from a study of Residential Construction in Los Angeles, 1900–53, under the direction of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of California, Los Angeles. Series measuring residential construction costs and asking prices for single family dwellings in Los Angeles both had steeply rising trends of approximately equal slope from 1900 to 1953. Both series described clearly defined cyclical fluctuations of wide amplitude. However, asking prices, which are indicative of sales values, fluctuated more widely than construction costs. The ratio of asking prices to construction costs traced a cyclical pattern of large amplitude with troughs occurring in 1900, 1919, 1934, 1942, and 1950. Except for the immediate postwar period, 1945–1947, this ratio fluctuated less widely since 1934 than in the earlier part of the period analyzed.