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I hadn't seen this Federal Reserve Board study on renting versus owning a house, and it's useful:

Interestingly, U.S. homeowners already seem to have an implicit understanding of the importance of the price/rent ratio. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published a fascinating research study last fall analyzing the fundamental pricing of houses. Using government data, Federal Reserve researchers compared U.S. housing prices to rents going back to 1982, and found that they've generally risen hand in hand--until recently, when home prices rocketed to all-time highs compared with rents. However, what's curious is that the rent component of their study focused on Consumer Price Index data, and this data is estimated at least partially through surveys of homeowners asked to assess what their house would rent for on the open market. So while the debate currently rages in the news media over whether homes are overvalued, U.S. homeowners have already tacitly admitted that homes are overpriced--even if they haven't said it in so many words.

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