The graph is visually misleading because putting the top 5% on it (and then including a blank bar even on top of that) makes changes in all the other lines look smaller. The top three quintiles are all upward sloping prior to 2000, and since then the top 5% line is flat too, which is attributable to the recession(s) following the dotcom bust, 9/11 and the housing crisis.
And be careful with the debt numbers. The thing you really want there is net worth anyway. Otherwise you get silly outcomes like people buying homes causing "debt" to increase dramatically even though assets increase by an equivalent amount at the same time.
That's a rather weird graph - it doesn't show house price to income ratio at all, even though that's its title. It shows change in that ratio since 2010. Tells you essentially nothing about the actual house price to income ratio.
Data geek niggle - it's pretty deceptive to start the graph at $200 million instead of zero. It makes the drop in 2012 look larger than it really is. Granted, the effect isn't huge in this case, but its still very bad practice.
Can you describe how you reached your conclusion from the data in the spreadsheet? I don't see any of the three series correlating particularly strongly with house prices. My own pet theory is that adding the Fed's QE purchases to the graph would show stronger correlation than the series that are present.
Without much background in finance, I have a hard time knowing if these graphs are all meaningful, or if they're just cherry picked. Is there any way to tell?
The final cashflow amount of the house graph (in the example) ends in the negative, s this accurate?
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