The Value of the White House Through Time

We spent the weekend creating a value of the White House interactive infographic. During that process, we took a look at three things:

1. How much the White House has been worth since its creation in 1800 until the present
2. The Presidents that saw the greatest increase in White House value while they were in office
3. Over the past 100+ years, how much the Presidents spent on campaigning compared to the value of the White House

There were several key takeaways I noticed from each of the graphs we produced. The all focus around the change in value over the last 25 years or so.

The White House Experienced a Bubble that Still Hasn’t Popped

In order to value the White House, we had to find nearby “comparable homes”. I say “comparable homes” because it is important to note we considered the White House to be a house for our analysis, not a priceless national treasure. Therefore, we were able to find a Frank Lloyd Wright house in nearby McLain, Virginia that could act as a potential comp. We then arrived at a value of $110,000,000, or $2,000/sqft.

Then, to find the value of the White House trough time, we had to consult several sources:

1. The Case Shiller Home Value index for the DC area dating back to 1987
2. The Case Shiller Home Value index for America as a whole dating back to 1890
3. Inflation from 1890 to 1800

What immediately sticks out is the giant bubble that really began in the late 1980s and still hasn’t completely popped. That bubble should be immediately obvious as the real estate bubble that has caused the great recession, but I found fascinating how it still hasn’t completely popped.

You would have to assume some pretty price hefty inflation over the past twelve years to justify its current price tag, but that doesn’t seem reasonable to me. Looking at the wage to price ratio of Washington, DC, the median property is still not affordable to the median buyer.

Inflation and Bubbles Lead to Biggest Gains in Value

George W. Bush was a better president than Abraham Lincoln, at least when it came to overseeing the biggest value increase in the White House. The price of the White House increased by almost $37 million during his time in office. The president in second? Abraham Lincoln who oversaw a price increase of $28 million dollars.

The methods the two men used to achieve their price gains are completely different. Bush benefited from the single greatest real estate bubble in American history; whereas Lincoln was president during a time of very high inflation, the Civil War.

I’ll give Lincoln a pass as he was fighting one of the most important Wars in American history. You have to be a little less forgiving of Bush who helped fuel a disaster.

Recent Presidents Have Overpaid for the White House

I had the most fun running this analysis over the weekend. We looked at each president’s campaign spend on his first election run and compared that to the value of the White House. In this way, you can say that the President was “buying the White House”.

In our analysis, Andrew Johnson got a heck of a deal. He made over $60 million on his purchase. The worst? Barack Obama overpaid by some $1 billion.

I found it incredibly interesting in how the amount of money spent on a campaign absolutely ballooned over the past 12 to 20 years. The amounts went from being in the 10s of millions to suddenly in the hundreds of millions. And then Obama just blew every one way by spending over a billion in 2008.

So while the White House was once a good deal for the President, it has become way too expensive recently. Whoever wins this election is going to have a mortgage to pay off for the next 1,000 years.