Real Estate people: I want to buy a house, advice?

[Taylor Caby]

[ QUOTE ]
Heres a link to that article
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...e_rent_ratios/

[/ QUOTE ]

very interesting, yet disconcerting article.

i have a question, and sorry for the hijack:

why are price to rent ratios historically so different across different cities? I can understand why they would have short term fluctuations, but I can't figure out why certain places historically have 2x and 3x P/R ratios of other places.

thanks,
tc