The short answer
From January 1987 to August 2026, gold’s price rose faster than US house prices, before and after inflation. Gold’s monthly average price went up 995% (6.2% a year); the Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index rose 428% (4.3% a year); US consumer prices rose 200%. After inflation, gold gained 265% (3.3% a year) and house prices 76% (1.4% a year).
But this is prices only. A property owner also collects rent (or saves it, by living there) and often uses a mortgage, while paying maintenance, taxes and transaction costs. None of that is in the index, and rent alone could close the gap. What the data does show clearly is that the two assets led at different times, with very different swings: gold’s worst real fall was −65%, house prices’ −36%.
The numbers, nominal and real
| Measure | Gold | US house prices (Case-Shiller National) | US CPI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start (Jan 1987) | $408.3 /oz | 63.7 (index) | 111.4 |
| End (Aug 2026) | $4,468.9 /oz | 336.7 (index) | 334.1 |
| Nominal total change | +995% | +428% | +200% |
| Nominal annual rate | +6.2% | +4.3% | – |
| Real (after inflation) total change | +265% | +76% | – |
| Real annual rate | +3.3% | +1.4% | – |
| Worst real fall, peak to trough | −65% (Dec 1987 → Apr 2001) | −36% (May 2006 → Feb 2012) | – |
| Real value back at the old peak | Feb 2008 | Mar 2021 | – |
| Annualised volatility of monthly changes | 12.4% | 2.4% | – |
| Calendar years with a real loss (1988–2025) | 18 of 38 | 16 of 38 | – |
Reading the chart: both lines start at 100 in January 1987 after adjusting for inflation. Gold spent most of the 1990s losing real value and did not get back to its 1987 real level until 2008. House prices rose steadily, crashed from 2006 to 2012, then climbed again. Since 2022 gold has pulled far ahead, while house prices have roughly kept pace with inflation.
Who led when
| Period | Gold | House prices | Inflation (CPI) | Better in real terms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 1987 → Dec 1999 | −30.7% | +56.2% | +51.5% | Houses |
| Dec 1999 → Jun 2006 | +110.6% | +85.4% | +19.5% | Gold |
| Jun 2006 → Feb 2012 | +192.7% | −27.4% | +13.1% | Gold |
| Feb 2012 → Dec 2019 | −15.2% | +58.4% | +13.3% | Houses |
| Dec 2019 → Jun 2022 | +24.2% | +45.2% | +14.0% | Houses |
| Jun 2022 → Aug 2026 | +143.3% | +9.3% | +13.3% | Gold |
The periods are chosen at the turning points visible in the chart: the end of the 1990s, the 2006 housing peak, the 2012 housing low, the end of 2019 and the mid-2022 house price peak. Houses led in three of the six periods and gold in three. In other words, the long-run winner was decided by a few large swings, most of all gold’s +193% from June 2006 to February 2012 while house prices fell 27%, and gold’s +143% since mid-2022 while house prices rose 9%.
The correlation of the two assets’ inflation-adjusted calendar-year returns from 1988 to 2025 was −0.21: slightly negative, so they rarely boomed together. Gold beat house prices in real terms in 18 of 38 years.
Why the comparison is harder than it looks
- Rent is missing. A rental property earns income every month; gold earns nothing. Net rent adds to property’s return every year, and the gap in real price growth here is only about 1.9 percentage points a year (3.3% against 1.4%), so even a modest net rental yield could close it. We do not add an assumed number because we have no matching public series.
- Leverage changes everything. Most property is bought with a mortgage. A 20% deposit turns a 10% price rise into a much larger gain on equity, and a 10% fall into a much larger loss. The 2006–2012 crash shows both sides.
- Costs are real. Buying and selling a house costs far more than trading gold, and maintenance and property tax run every year. Gold has storage, insurance or product costs instead.
- An index is not your house. Case-Shiller tracks repeat sales of single-family homes across the US. Individual cities and houses vary widely.
- Smoothing. The index is a three-month moving average, which makes house prices look calmer than they are; the true volatility gap is smaller than 12.4% vs 2.4%.
How we built this comparison
- House prices: S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index, not seasonally adjusted, monthly (FRED series CSUSHPINSA), January 1987 (the first month) to August 2026 (the latest).
- Inflation: US CPI for all urban consumers, seasonally adjusted (FRED CPIAUCSL).
- Gold: the World Bank’s monthly average gold price (Pink Sheet, London-based) from 1987 to December 2025, and for January to August 2026, the monthly average of COMEX gold futures (GC=F) daily closes from Yahoo Finance, because the World Bank file we downloaded ends in December 2025.
- Real values: each month’s price divided by that month’s CPI. Annual rates use calendar time; volatility is the standard deviation of monthly changes × √12. Drawdowns use monthly values.
Limitations
- Price indexes only: no rent, dividends, leverage, costs or taxes.
- Monthly averages: gold’s monthly average smooths its daily swings; house prices are a three-month moving average.
- One country and one start date: the comparison starts in January 1987 because that is when the national index begins; a different start date would change the result.
- Two sources for gold (World Bank to 2025, futures in 2026), joined at the year end.
What gold traders can do with this
- Think in real terms. Gold’s long-run story is about purchasing power, but it can lose real value for a decade or more. Our inflation hedge study looks at that in detail, and the gold price history page has the long chart.
- Know what drives the swings. In the short run gold responds mostly to real yields and the dollar, not to property; the gold vs real yields and the dollar tracker shows that channel today, and our gold vs bonds study measures it.
- Separate investing from trading. A long-run comparison like this one says nothing about next week’s XAUUSD price. For trading, use tested methods; see gold trading strategies tested and gold indicator settings tested, and size every trade with the position size calculator.
More comparisons: gold vs the S&P 500, gold vs bonds and gold vs Bitcoin, all on our gold data studies hub.
Talk it through with other traders
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Sources
- FRED: S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index (CSUSHPINSA)
- FRED: Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPIAUCSL)
- World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), monthly gold price
- COMEX gold futures (GC=F) daily data via Yahoo Finance, downloaded 30 October 2026; all returns, ratios and correlations are our own calculations
Educational content only, not financial advice. Past performance does not predict future returns. Trading gold with leverage carries a high risk of loss.
Frequently asked questions
Has gold or real estate done better since 1987?
On price alone, gold. From January 1987 to August 2026, gold’s monthly average price rose 995% (6.2% a year) and the Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index rose 428% (4.3% a year). After inflation the figures were +265% (3.3% a year) for gold and +76% (1.4% a year) for house prices. These numbers exclude rent, which is a large part of a property owner’s return.
Is gold or property a better inflation hedge?
Over the full 39 years both beat inflation on price alone, gold by more. But gold took far longer swings: after inflation it fell 65% from its December 1987 level to April 2001 and did not regain it until February 2008. House prices’ worst real fall was 36%, from May 2006 to February 2012, and took until March 2021 to recover.
Which is more volatile, gold or house prices?
Gold, by a wide margin. The annualised volatility of monthly changes was 12.4% for gold and 2.4% for the house price index. Part of that gap is real (houses are not traded every second) and part is method: the Case-Shiller index is a three-month moving average of repeat sales, which smooths it.
Do gold and house prices move together?
Not in this data. The correlation of their inflation-adjusted calendar-year returns from 1988 to 2025 was −0.21. Gold did best from 2006 to 2012, when house prices fell 27%, and house prices did best from 1987 to 1999 and 2012 to 2019, when gold fell.
Why doesn't this comparison include rent?
Because there is no single public series of net rental income that matches the national price index month by month, and adding an assumed yield would mean inventing a number. Rent, mortgage leverage, maintenance, property taxes and transaction costs can change a property investor’s result completely, so treat this as a price comparison only.