What's with Ginger Bread Homes?
By Chris Petry
As of this writing, the Federal Reserve has enacted its third interest rate of the fiscal quarter. These rate cuts coming after two years of steep increases. While rates will fall even more in 2025, current projections indicate it will be much more gradual and deliberate. No matter what, rate decreases will almost certainly be welcomed by the home buying public.
While it’s been said many times, many ways (pardon the season-appropriate pun), interest rates even at their recent highs are still lower than historical highs. So, what’s different? Why more hesitation in the marketplace since 2022? Well, as interest rates were creeping up, home prices were hitting historical highs. This is the result of down the line inflation that increases the price of construction materials, transport, taxes, utilities and more. As well as scarcity. Which is to say, there was more demand than houses available to purchase. Luckily, that’s also been turning around. Except where gingerbread houses are concerned.
Over the weekend, while on a Wal-Mart run for a paper shredder that also resulted in the purchase of electrical tape, cheddar sour cream potato chips, and pajamas for a mannequin (don’t ask), I was shocked to see how inflation has impacted the price of the humble gingerbread house. By my Art School math, the price of the average gingerbread house is somewhere around $14. Come on people, it’s 4 walls and a roof made of spiced bread! What’s going on here? Deeper yet, why do we spend the days before Christmas building a silly little house with edible drywall anyway?
It appears gingerbread, or spiced bread in general, originated in West Asia well over a thousand years ago. The French credit Armenia Monk, Gregory of Nicopolis for bringing it to their shores around 992 A.D. He spread the practice through the pious and it was no time before the tradition took hold throughout Central and Western, Europe. By the 14th century, the Germans were baking and distributing gingerbread in its modern form. Until the 18th century, gingerbread was regarded as a delicate art, the stuff of professionally trained craftsmen and commoners were discouraged or outright barred from preparing it outside religious holidays.
Elizabeth I of England is said to have originated the gingerbread man (though my favorite variety is voiced by Gary Busey), ordering her chefs to prepare gingerbread people in the likeness of her prestigious guests. Finally, in the early 1800s, the Germans decided to return to the gingerbread game by constructing miniscule real estate confectionaries. The gingerbread house was born. Just where did the idea come from? Historians, no joke, think the idea originates from the Brothers Grimm. Notably their intro-to-horror child’s tale of two lost siblings who wander upon an edible home in the deep forest, inhabited by a cannibalistic witch: Hansel and Gretel.
Regardless of where the Winter Holiday tradition originated, its popularity is undeniable. In 2013, in Bryan, Texas, a new Guinness World Record was set with the construction of a 2,520 sq ft gingerbread house. At a reported 35.8 million calories, not even Hansel and Gretel would be able to consume all that gingerbread. If you think that’s impressive, look no further than my own gingerbread house I constructed last year in a Christmas eve duel with my siblings. When I opened my box, I was horrified to discover the roofing crackers were broken. In the face of insurmountable odds, one must get creative. Well, I’ll let you be the judge.
If you’re looking to buy or sell a home you can’t eat, you’ll definitely want to speak with a REALTOR from your local branch of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Stouffer Realty. Happy Holidays everyone!
