Streaming, housing, gas: How much did prices change in 2023?
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Streaming, housing, gas: How much did prices change in 2023?
Inflation hit a 40-year high during the pandemic, but price increases are beginning to cool down.
The latest consumer price index report from the Labor Department showed that prices rose 3.1% year-over-year, compared to a peak of 9.1% year-over-year back in June 2022.
In 2022, a gallon of gas hit $5, while egg prices started to skyrocket at the end of the year. This year, we’ve seen prices come down for both, but some big-ticket items and key household expenses have continued to rise in price.
Here’s a look back at a year in prices:
Eggs
The record-high eggflation we saw at the beginning of the year seems to finally be behind us. The price for a carton of eggs averaged $4.80 in January due to the bird flu, which infected more than 57 million hens in 2022. As the industry rebounded and cases declined, the price dropped over the past year, hitting $2.14 in November — less than half the cost at the beginning of the year.
Gas
In January, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. stood at about $3.45 a gallon, almost reaching $4 in the fall, before finally dipping to $3.26 this month, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. As Marketplace previously reported, prices have dropped because demand has been on the decline now that fewer people are on the road after the summer holidays. And in general, more people are driving alternative-fuel vehicles. Oil demand is also down around the world in places like China and Europe, while U.S. oil production has risen.
Rent
The median asking price for rent in the country’s 50 largest metros stood at $1,717 in November for zero- to two-bedroom properties, according to a report from Realtor.com. That’s $9 down from January, when the median stood at $1,726, and $59 down from its peak in July 2022. Back in June, Marketplace reported that the rental market was cooling because many new apartments had finished construction. However, the Realtor.com report notes that the November asking price is still $313 higher than it was pre-pandemic.
Houses
The median sales price of a house rose in 2023, increasing from about $382,000 in January to about $409,000 in November, according to data from Redfin. In metro areas such as San Jose, California, and San Francisco, the median sales price stood even higher at more than $1.4 million. On top of rising housing prices, mortgage rates have also increased, leaving homeowners with higher monthly bills. The 30-year fixed rate almost reached 8% in November, according to average weekly data from Freddie Mac.
Redfin said this has been “the least affordable year for homebuying” in history, with low supply and low demand contributed to these high prices. To afford the median home, you would need to spend 41% of your monthly earnings compared to 39% in 2022 and 31% in 2021, according to the real estate brokerage firm.
Streaming
Streaming is getting more expensive. In October, Netflix increased the price of its ad-free basic plan — which is no longer available to new subscribers — from $9.99 to $11.99 a month. The price of a premium plan, which is ad-free and allows subscribers to stream on four supported devices, went up from $19.99 a month to $22.99. However, its standard plan remained the same at $15.49, along with its standard plan with ads, which is $6.99.
Cheap prices have been a way to lure customers, but streamers are raising their prices to reflect the true cost of running their service, one expert told Marketplace. It’s also become harder to accrue new subscribers because there aren’t that many potential customers left.
Prices for Disney+ went up as well. Its premium plan, without ads, increased from $10.99 to $13.99 a month. Meanwhile, the price of an ad-free subscription for Hulu, which is owned by Disney, increased from $14.99 a month to $17.99.
Apple TV+ increased the price of its subscription this year from $6.99 a month to $9.99. Apple previously increased the price back in 2022 from $4.99 to $6.99.
Amazon is hiking its prices for Prime Video, which will take effect early next year, if you want to watch movies or TV shows without ads. The ad-free subscription tier will cost an extra $2.99 a month.
Gold
The price of gold has reached almost $2,100 an ounce, up from more than $1,840 an ounce earlier this year. Investors see it as a “safe haven” amid financial uncertainty.
Gold bars are a hot commodity at Costco, which ended up selling more than $100 million worth of them last quarter.
But financial experts warn that you should be cautious about investing in gold. “Gold is volatile, it’s as risky as investing in the S&P 500,” Campbell Harvey, a Duke University finance professor, told Marketplace. “It’s naive to think that every single time that gold will provide some protection in the time of economic uncertainty, or even a crisis.”
Rolex watches
The price of secondhand luxury watches has declined by 8.1%, according to the Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index, which tracks the 50 most traded watches from Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet.
The average price dropped from $36,680 to $33,894. CNBC reports that during the pandemic, people used their stimulus checks on luxury goods, leading to a scarcity of watch models, which drove people to secondhand market. Now, we’re seeking a watch market correction.
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