A simple Google search will give you an obvious result: “Spending to purchase and improve houses and other housing units is treated as investment and not consumption in the CPI.”
Right, that's covered by "owner's equivalent rent." This is LOWER than what homeowners actually pay. (Think about it -- Do landlords make negative `profit = home_payment_expenses - rent`?)
Any why would GGP mention food, cars, and energy? They are directly included in the CPI. I think it's more likely that GGP is under the false impression that these items are excluded from the CPI -- It's a conspiracy theory originating from economists' practice of using "CPI Excluding Food, Shelter, Energy, and Used Cars and Trucks" as a lower-variance estimate of the future inflation rate.
