Introducing Home Economics

Using data visualization to contextualize America's housing market

Two years ago I launched this newsletter under the tantalizing name Sunderji.substack. I had few readers, and wrote about everything from happiness to healthcare.

As I’ve sharpened my focus, readership has grown. In September alone, over 400 of you subscribed to this newsletter, which now aims exclusively to use data visualization to analyze and contextualize America’s housing market. 

This tighter focus allows me to leverage my experience: 14 years as a strategist covering the bond market and the macroeconomy at Barclays Investment Bank in London and New York, and a subsequent second career as a graphics reporter at The Wall Street Journal.

Today I’m excited to make the commitment official with a new name and a new logo: Sunderji.substack is now Home Economics.

What’s next for Home Economics

I’m looking forward to doing more analysis under the refreshed banner. If you’re new here, these are some of the posts that your fellow subscribers have found most thought-provoking:

• A comparison of the differences in how Denmark and the US finance homes

• A visualization of the battle between Millennials and Boomers for housing

• An explanation for the growing share of housing in the household budget

Paying subscribers will now get more

Over the coming months, I’ll go beyond my weekly posts, and start to share work covering new areas using new formats.

Home price forecasts
Forecasting is a tricky business—and the evidence suggests we are mostly bad at it. Still, even if they’re sometimes off the mark, forecasts are useful because they elucidate a way of thinking about an asset class.

Clear, concise coverage of real estate data releases
Stay tuned for frequently-updated chart packs that will cover every major aspect of the housing market—from transaction volumes and prices, to regional and county-specific analysis, to demographics.

Access to proprietary calculated data
I spend a lot of time finding and crunching the data that powers my visualizations. I am now sharing that data with you, so you can explore it yourself and use it in your own work (paying subscribers can find the data for my latest article here).

Powering your presentations
Many of you have asked me if you can use my charts for your own presentations. The short answer? Yes! I’ll provide my charts in user-friendly formats for cross-platform use.

Deeper dives into critical topics
I will be producing more in-depth analysis of key topics—like demographics, interest rates, and migration—in long-form posts.

Thank you!

Most of you are signed up for the free tier of Home Economics. I am incredibly grateful for your support. A healthy portion of my work will continue to be free.

However, only paying clients will have access to the new features I mentioned above, and to the archive of previous posts. The price for a subscription will be rising to $20 per month and $200 per year—but if you sign up for an annual subscription in the next two weeks using this link, you’ll get a 50% discount. 

If you’ve found my work interesting and useful—and especially if you are in the real estate industry—I hope you feel compelled to share this newsletter with your colleagues, to follow me on Twitter, and to become a paying client. 

I’m excited for the next few months, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride.