The Unassuming Economist

On cross-country:

• The long road home: Examining the global housing affordability crisis. Chronic supply-demand imbalances, elevated mortgage rates and rising ownership costs are straining housing affordability across many markets — a global problem that demands localized solutions. – JP Morgan
• RICS responds to EU call for evidence on Housing Supply and Affordability – RICS
• How New York Property Prices Compare Around the World – Visual Capitalist

Working papers and conferences:  

• Associate Professor Xi Yang examines how bank credit expansion shapes house prices and fertility – University of Auckland
• Seminar examines how anti-money laundering rules relate to house prices across OECD countries – University of Auckland
• Who benefits from upzoning? A 2016 zoning reform in São Paulo increased the ability of developers to supply housing units by lifting limitations on permitted densification on a block-by-block basis. – American Economic Association

On China:

• China Property: Past Global Housing Crises Point The Way To Recovery – S&P Global
• Cheap debt is not enough to get China’s homebuyers spending again. Policymakers should put more fiscal resources towards absorbing excess housing supply and restoring buyers’ confidence – South China Morning Post

On other countries:  

• [Spain] Spain’s Protesters See ‘Madness’ of Rising Rent and a ‘Martyr’ in Maricarmen. Thousands of protesters marched in Madrid on Thursday, a day after the death of María del Carmen Abascal, an 87-year-old whose eviction became a symbol of the country’s housing crisis. – New York Times
• [Spain] Spain’s rental dilemma: protecting tenants won’t fix the housing shortage – ING
• [United Arab Emirates] UAE Residential Property Price Report – September 2026 – REIDIN
• [United Kingdom] UK House Prices Stall, Undercutting Rebound Expectations – The Globe and Mail
• [United Kingdom] Demand for tracker mortgages jumps as rates on fixed deals rise. Deals that follow the base rate look cheaper but are ‘not a free bet’ – FT

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• US mortgage rates rise for seventh straight week to hit highest since 2023. Benchmark borrowing costs continue to climb against backdrop of surging Treasury yields, elevated energy prices and expected tightening by Fed – FT
• Highest Mortgage Rates in 3 Years Chill the Housing Market. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 7.4 percent, putting more pressure on Americans struggling to afford to buy a home. – New York Times
• How 7.4% Mortgages Are Giving Buyers Leverage in a Stuck Housing Market. Highest mortgage rates in three years putting pressure on home prices in some metro areas where market starting to tilt toward buyers – Wall Street Journal
• Home price shifts across local housing markets, as told by 3 maps. Large, sparsely populated counties can dominate a home price map, so ResiClub sized counties by active inventory instead. – Fast Company
• A New Type of Mortgage Is Reviving Long Abandoned Neighborhoods. The loan—based on potential rental income, not the borrower’s wealth—is helping real-estate investors buy and renovate homes – Wall Street Journal
• Rent-setting algorithms require targeted regulation, not new laws. Fragmented, vague legislation creates unnecessary risk and uncertainty about how platforms and users can operate without triggering legal penalties. – Reason

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:     

• Stubborn Sellers Are the Last Thing Propping Up Home Prices. Mortgage rates above 7% might not be enough to crack home values if owners hold the line – Wall Street Journalv
• Declining Immigration Threatens Labor Supply in the Construction Trades – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Preconference Workshops on Housing Supply – AEI
• Can We Fast-Track New York City Out of the Housing Crisis? Mamdani’s fast track speeds up the kind of rezoning that has rarely produced homes, in the districts where the economics work least. – Home Economics
• Early Look at Local Housing Markets in September – Calculated Risk
• Trump Administration Unveils New Steps To Bolster Manufactured Housing – Realtor.com
• San Francisco Isn’t Giving Up on Turning More of Its Offices Into Homes. The city has not completed a single office-to-housing conversion, despite hopes to meet housing demand and inject life into empty downtowns. – New York Times
• Home Sellers Are Starting to Blink on Prices. That’s Bad for Builders. Competition for buyers is heating up, which will force companies like Lennar and KB Home to beef up incentives – Wall Street Journal
• 16% of NAHB Builders Reported Building Age-Restricted Housing in 2025 – NAHB
• Housing Week Ahead: Home Sales, Luxury Trends, and New Inflation Data – Realtor.com
• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 3.99 million SAAR in September. Median House Prices Increased 1.3% Year-over-Year – Calculated Risk
• Existing Home Sales Increased in September – NAHB
• High Frequency Data: Recent Increase in Mortgage Rates Impacting Existing Home Supply and Demand. Purchase Applications Down 16% YoY; Single Family Inventory Up 4.8% YoY – Calculated Risk
• US existing home sales rise in September; higher mortgage rates dim outlook – Reuters
• Code Games 2.0. The Trump administration begins the implementation of manufactured housing deregulation. – Reason
• How housing victories in San Diego, Austin, and Atlanta could spread nationwide. A new initiative wants to help mayors move fast and build things. – Vox
• Labor Shortages a Growing Problem – NAHB
• Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-October 2026 – Calculated Risk

On other developments:    

• The Problem With Homeownership. A new history traces the American idealization of homeownership. It lays bare the high social costs of organizing democracy around property values. – Jacobin
• The Unintended Consequences of Bill Pulte’s FHFA Reforms – AEI
• Affordability Part 1 – John Cochrane
• Affordability Trilogy, Part 2 – John Cochrane
• Affordability Trilogy, Part 3. Why is the free market so unpopular? – John Cochrane
• The tenant activist at the center of Mamdani’s housing gamble. How far can the tenant movement go with one of its own in City Hall? – Politico
• Trump-Backed Housing Rule Could Undercut Effort to Lower Costs – Bloomberg  
• 10 U.S. cities where housing eats less than 28% of a typical income. Affordability is improving nationwide, and these 10 metros ask the smallest share of a buyer’s income. – Quartz
• Apollo’s Slok on Housing, US Economic Growth, Fed Policy – Bloomberg

From a paper by Sergio De Nardis:

“The dichotomy between Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) and national deflators in international comparisons of real variables (GDP per capita and productivity) has returned to center stage in the recent debate on the gap between the EU and the US. This dichotomy does not only concern comparisons between structurally different countries. It is also present, to a lesser but still significant extent, in Europe and with reference to the Italian economy. This paper shows how, over the period 2005-2023, Italy’s productivity performance compared to Germany and France is better if GDP is measured in PPPs (output side) rather than deflated with implicit prices from national accounts. The two types of measurement lead to dynamics that are difficult to reconcile. Examining the PPP-deflator gap, it is clear that this difference does not depend on the composition and structure of the weights used in constructing PPPs. Analysis of the expenditure categories that make up GDP and analysis of the specific household consumption items reveal a pervasive phenomenon, affecting both tradable and non-tradable products. It is argued that the structural similarity of economies lends robustness to PPPs. It is concluded that comparisons between countries under consideration based on data deflated with implicit prices from national accounts are less reliable, even in time series, than those based on PPPs due to the heterogeneous approaches of statistical offices in accounting for the quality of goods and services, the different granularity of underlying information, and the fixed structure of relative prices across economies.”

On cross-country:

• Why shares are the new bricks and mortar. Household wealth is flowing from property to stocks – The Economist
• Asian investors turn to housing, real assets as global tension shakes market confidence – South China Morning Post
• Combating the cost-of-living crisis and soaring housing prices – European Parliament
• House prices and rents continued to rise in Q2 2026 – Eurostat
• EU house prices surge, but rents soar in surprising hotspots – The Brussels Times
• Europe’s housing crisis rings alarm bells for the rest of us. Evictions and spiralling rents are the symptom, not the underlying disease of Europe’s rent crisis. – Financial Review
• Europe’s construction sector faces a period of weak growth. Europe’s construction volumes will keep growing but remain subdued. Infrastructure investment and Germany’s gradual rebound are drivers, while higher financing costs and geopolitical risks cap momentum. Housing permits have stabilised, signalling that a stronger residential recovery will have to wait – ING
• The 10 global housing markets most at risk of a bubble in 2026. Home prices in major cities have climbed far beyond local incomes. UBS ranks the 10 urban markets where bubble risk now runs deepest – Quartz

Working papers and conferences:  

• Conference: Housing markets – squaring supply and demand on November 17 – SUERF
• Reassessing the 2000s Housing Cycle After Two Decades of Research – NBER
• Supply Constraints Do Explain House Price and Quantity Growth Across U.S. Cities – Dallas Fed
• The Affordability Paradox: Why Cheaper Homes Are Harder to Finance – St. Louis Fed

On China:

• Wuhan joins major Chinese cities in shift towards completed-home sales – South China Morning Post

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Australian home prices fall for sixth month, face worst slump in 30 years – Reuters
• [Australia] Australia’s housing slump could have a silver lining for its banks. Housing slowdown could result in lenders directing capital to more profitable places – FT
• [Australia] The most painful housing market plunge is here. And it’s not prices. Falling house prices are the new national obsession. But there’s another property market metric that spells real trouble for the broader economy. – Financial Review
• [Australia] Australia’s housing market is definitely in a downturn – but let’s put that in perspective – The Guardian
• [Australia] Australia is building a lot of new homes. But is the datacentre boom holding us back? – The Guardian

On other countries:  

• [Canada] The complexity of housing affordability – Bank of Canada
• [Canada] Bank of Canada Won’t Target House Prices With Interest Rates – Bloomberg
• [Canada] Canada is not close to restoring housing affordability, says central bank – Reuters
• [Canada] More turbulence hits Canada’s housing markets to kick off fall – RBC
• [Canada] Toronto Home Prices Fall for a Second Month as Loan Costs Rise – Bloomberg
• [Hong Kong] How a Hong Kong property investor still made US$30 million – after a 40% price cut – South China Morning Post
• [Singapore] Interest-only Research on grasping bureaucrats startles Singapore. It is more revealing about its academic culture than its civil service – The Economist
• [Spain] The right and wrong lessons to learn from Spain’s housing crisis. Evictions and spiralling rents are the symptom, not the underlying disease – FT
• [Spain] Spanish right wing votes down housing crisis plans as protest movement grows. Opposition lawmakers join forces to defeat proposals made by Socialist-led coalition after eviction of 87-year-old – The Guardian
• [Spain] ‘This can’t go on’: tens of thousands protest against housing crisis in Spain – The Guardian
• [Spain] How an 87-year-old Spanish woman became the face of the fight for affordable housing – explainer– The Guardian
• [Spain] Spanish Leader Calls for Elections, Riding Wave of Anger Over Housing Costs. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is gambling that outrage over rising rents will help his socialist party secure a majority – Wall Street Journal
• [Spain] Why Spain Is Holding an Early Election. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, dissolved Parliament on Monday, after months of spiraling crises. – New York Times
• [Spain] Spain’s New Protest Movement Is Putting Class Center Stage. The occupation of Madrid’s Puerta del Sol by housing protesters has brought back memories of the anti-austerity revolt that began in 2011. But where the Indignados used generic populist language, this new movement has a clear left-wing focus on class. – Jacobin
• [Spain] Spain’s Leader Is Betting His Government on the Housing Crisis – Time
• [Spain] Spain approves 21 urgent housing measures after protests ahead of snap election – AP
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices fall as higher mortgage rates ‘subdue’ market. Prospect of interest rate rises weighs on demand for properties – FT
• [United Kingdom] How to revive the UK’s zombified housing market. Can the new Help to Buy scheme end the horror? – FT
• [United Kingdom] Reform MP raises concerns about second homes – then buys one for £800,000. Sarah Pochin bought Anglesey property two days after writing to minister about impact of second home ownership on rural communities – The Guardian
• [United Kingdom] Higher mortgage rates inflict ‘pain’ on UK housing market. Slowdown comes as higher borrowing costs and economic uncertainty damp buyer demand, survey finds – FT
• [United Kingdom] Rate hike fears weigh on UK housing market, RICS says – Reuters

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• FHFA’s Q2 National Mortgage Database: Outstanding Mortgage Rates, LTV and Credit Scores – Calculated Risk
• Mortgage Rates Surge, Notching Largest Weekly Gain in Four Years. The rise to 7.28% follows the bond-market rout and deals another blow to a limping housing market – Wall Street Journal
• How 7% Mortgages Are Wrecking the Home-Buyer Playbook. With prices at record highs and inventory locked up, house hunters face dwindling financing options – Wall Street Journal
• US mortgage rates jump the most in four years in blow to housing market. Homebuilders and prospective buyers continue to face challenging market conditions with midterms looming weeks away – FT
• Beating the Headline Mortgage Rate: What Borrowers Still Control in a 7% Market – Realtor.com
• October ICE Mortgage Monitor: Annual home price growth was 1.4% in September. “Annual home price growth slowing for the first time in seven months” – Calculated Risk
• Mortgage Rates Rise as Treasury Yields Top 5% – NAHB 
• ARM Share Increased as Mortgage Rates Spiked – NAHB 
• The “Higher Rates, Higher Rent Doom Loop” Is a Big Problem for the Fed – Apollo
• Mamdani Promised To Freeze the Rent. Now His Rent Freeze Is in Court. A lawsuit alleges New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board broke the law by arbitrarily predetermining the outcome. – Reason
• Emerging Signs that Asking Rents are Near a Bottom – Calculated Risk
• Inflation Adjusted House Prices 3.8% Below 2022 Peak. Price-to-rent index is 11.0% below 2022 peak – Calculated Risk
• The U.S. cities where home prices have doubled in a decade. These 10 U.S. cities saw home prices double in a decade, driven by migration, tight supply and investor demand – Quartz
• The U.S. housing markets where homes sell fastest — and slowest. Sellers in some metros are waiting months for an offer. Best Interest Financial found 98 days separating the fastest and slowest markets – Quartz

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:     

• Private Residential Construction Spending Posts Broad-Based Gains in August – NAHB
• High Frequency Data: Recent Surge in Mortgage Rates Impacting Existing Home Supply and Demand. Purchase Applications Down 15% YoY; Single Family Inventory Increases – Calculated Risk
• Minneapolis 2040 Plan indicators point to stable rents, stalled development. Changes to land use policies appear insufficient to drive new housing production in a challenging development environment – Minneapolis Fed
• Remodeling Market Sentiment Remains Stable in Third Quarter Despite Headwinds – NAHB
• Institutional Investors Are Quietly Returning to the Housing Market – Realtor.com

On other developments:    

• As Boomers Start Turning 80, Their Contribution to Housing Demand Is Starting To Wane – Realtor.com
• Cities Across the US Are Turning Attics, Backyards and Garages Into Housing. ADUs are an increasingly popular answer to rental shortages, but their cost and complexity make the economics difficult. – Bloomberg
• My mortgage is a problem for the Fed, and for America. Homeowners like me are staying put, the market is frozen and affordability is as ugly as it was in the housing bubble – FT
• 2026 Realtor.com Generational Housing Succession – Realtor.com
• Warren Buffett’s Successor at Berkshire Hathaway Places Another Big Bet on Housing – Realtor.com
• 78% of U.S. homebuyers now use AI to help buy a home. Among U.S. real estate agents surveyed by ResiClub and Zoodealio, 78% of clients use AI tools in their homebuying/selling process. They most often use it to research neighborhoods, schools, or comps. – Fast Company
• Young Americans are getting crushed by housing costs — just in time for the midterms. A new survey finds 1 in 5 Americans spend half their pre-tax income on housing, and renters are bearing the worst of it – Quartz
• Mark Zandi: Fixing the housing market will take a long time, but there is a way to speed up the recovery – CNBC
• Homeownership Is Not a Solution to the Racial Wealth Gap – Roosevelt Institute