In the United States, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the key monthly measure of U.S. price inflation.

In most cases, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) goes to great lengths to gather data on actual amounts spent, and at what price, for hundreds of consumer goods and services. But the system breaks down on a category called “shelter costs.”

Some 75% of the CPI is comprised of actual measurements of spending for gasoline, food, and hundreds of other products and services, but the other 25% of the CPI’s weighting comes from homeowner “shelter costs”, or what the BLS calls “Owner’s Equivalent Rent” (OER), a spurious way of calculating what these figures really are.

While BLS economists view mortgage and property tax payments as investments in an asset and unlike ordinary spending, their approach leaves nothing left to measure for homeowner shelter costs. Ancillary costs like homeowner’s insurance, utilities, and other items are measured in other CPI categories.

BLS's solution to this dilemma is to assume that homeowner inflation is the same as inflation experience by renters, which isn't very reflective of a homeowner's true cost of living.

In an effort to improve this measure, SMR created the Homeowners Cost Of Living (HCOL), a monthly series of reports and spreadsheets focused on shelter costs, inflation, credit risk, and changing home values.

The monthly HCOL report will include local and national credit risk trends as well as a unique method to measure changes in home market values.

Subscribers to the monthly report will receive:
 1. National HCOL Report: mean and median mortgage and property tax payment costs and change from a prior year. Hard counts of over 50 million owner-occupied homes.
 2. State-By-State HCOL detail spreadsheet.
 3. Credit Risk: national data and spreadsheet for over 50 largest counties. Counts under-water homes, high-risk loans, default histories, and other risk items against year earlier.
 4. Home Value Month-Over-Month Change: national data and spreadsheet for over 50 largest counties. Computes estimated home market value per square foot of home size; places moving up or down in value.

You can view sample data from the month of May 2023 below.