The Unassuming Economist

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  

On cross-country:

• To fix housing affordability, build more homes. Faced with rising mortgage costs, governments should resist stoking demand – FT
• How Europe’s housing crisis is fuelling a new movement. As soaring rents and house prices across Europe​ feed into the political discourse, campaigners believe they have a rare opportunity to force housing to the top of the agenda – The Guardian
• House prices up by 4.0% in the euro area – Eurostat  

Working papers and conferences:  

• Unlocking mortgage risk transfer: Why securitisation floor calibration and insurer access must move together – SUERF
• Property Rights Uncertainty, Prices, and Speculation: Evidence from China’s Housing Market – NBER
• Premiums or Peril – SSRN
• I Would Like the Value of My Home to Rise, While My Property Taxes Fall – Conversable Economist
• Event: Golden visas, house prices and electoral accountability on December 7 – LSE
• Fleeting Forbearance in a World of Persistent Financial Distress – New York Fed

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Billions in collateral damage: The hidden cost of Australia’s housing slowdown – Reuters
• [Australia] Brisbane and Sydney hit hardest by falling house prices as 5.2% shaved from property values nationwide. Cotality data shows median house prices fell in September as interest rates hit borrowing capacity – The Guardian
• [Australia] Australia’s Property Boom Is Unraveling. How Bad Will It Get? – Bloomberg
• [Australia] Housing market on track for its steepest downturn in 40 years – Financial Review
• [Australia] Australian home prices fall for sixth month, face worst slump in 30 years – Reuters
• [New Zealand] New Zealand House Prices Fall to Lowest Since Early 2021 – Bloomberg

On other countries:  

• [Denmark] Interest-only mortgage debt approaching 50 per cent – Central Bank of Denmark
• [Germany] The German housing market’s weakness is showing up everywhere except in prices. Higher mortgage rates are back. Housing affordability is deteriorating. Demand for mortgage loans is weakening. Yet, German house prices continue to edge higher – ING
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong must balance boosting public housing supply with other goals – South China Morning Post
• [Kenya] Kenyan Court Upholds President’s Unpopular Housing Levy – Bloomberg
• [Spain] Protesters demand Spanish government limit evictions after pensioner forced out – Reuters
• [Spain] Spain erupts in fury over housing after eviction of 87-year-old woman. Thousands take to the streets after Maricarmen Abascal forced to leave Madrid flat she had lived in for seven decades – FT
• [Spain] La vivienda en gráficos: más población, más turismo y poca construcción. Los precios han subido un 80% desde 2015. Desde entonces también ha crecido la población, han aflorado miles de pisos turísticos y los extranjeros no residentes han comprado más de 500.000 viviendas, mientras solo se han construido 850.000 – El Pais
• [Spain] Spain announces plan to ease housing crisis amid outcry over eviction of 87-year-old. Measures, which need to be approved in Congress, include extending ban on evictions of vulnerable people – The Guardian
• [Spain] Evicted Woman Set to Return Home as Spain Announces Plans to Fix Housing Crisis. The eviction of an 87-year-old set off protests in the country, which has an acute housing shortage. The government presented legislation to protect renters. – New York Times
• [Spain] Spain seeks to ban ‘vulture funds’ from housing market. Pedro Sánchez’s government responds to public outrage after 87-year-old was evicted by corporate landlord – FT
• [Spain] Spain’s Housing Reform. Mass protests over an 87-year-old’s eviction prompt new proposed legislation. – Foreign Policy
• [United Kingdom] Andy Burnham announces new homes scheme for first-time buyers. Exclusive: Policy initiative for England will help more young people on to property ladder, prime minister tells Guardian – The Guardian
• [United Kingdom] Burnham to revive Help to Buy scheme in bid to aid first-time buyers. Concern mounts among ministers that low housing construction volumes could hit growth forecasts – FT
• [United Kingdom] How London became the property market’s black sheep. Capital’s once-relentless property boom has gone into reverse – FT
• [United Kingdom] UK Mortgage Approvals Hit 32-Month Low as Loan Costs Bite – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] UK first-time buyer scheme lifts housebuilders, but success hinges on design – Reuters
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices fall as higher mortgage rates ‘subdue’ market. Prospect of interest rate rises weighs on demand for properties – FT

From a paper by Camilo Granados and Zhe (Jasmine) Jiang:

“Prudential regulation is designed for financial stability, yet the credit cycles it leans against fall unevenly across households—leaving its distributional footprint an open and contested question. Tracing that footprint across advanced, emerging, and developing economies over 1999–2024, we find that tighter macroprudential policy lowers income inequality, gradually and most clearly through the instruments that bear on banks rather than borrowers, and more so for inequality measured after taxes and transfers. To understand why, we build a closed-economy model with financial frictions and capital-skill complementarity in which prudential policy taxes the returns to intermediation. A tightening reduces inequality through three channels: it rebates revenue to households, cools the credit boom feeding financial rents, and compresses the skill premium accruing to high-income agents. Inequality moderation thus arises as a by-product of stability-oriented regulation—regulators tempering the distributional consequences of the credit cycle even when they only pursue financial stability.”

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Housing Week Ahead: September Housing Data, Home Prices, Jobs Report – Realtor.com
• Home price shifts across America’s 50 largest metro housing markets. On a regional and local level, there’s a lot of variation. – Fast Company
• New homes now cost less than existing ones in one-third of major markets – Zillow
• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 1.9% year-over-year in July. FHFA House Prices Up 2.6% Year-over-year in July – Calculated Risk
• Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased in August; Up 2.2% Year-over-year. Punta Gorda House Prices Down 18.2% from Recent Peak, Austin Down 15.8%, Cape Coral Down 14.6% – Calculated Risk
• Rising Mortgage Rates and Record Prices Leave Home Buyers Out of Moves. With prices at record highs and inventory locked up, house hunters are left with dwindling financing options – Wall Street Journal

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:     

• New Home Sales Increase to 684,000 Annual Rate in August. Median New Home Price is Down 15% from the Peak due to Change in Mix – Calculated Risk
• New Home Sales Rise as Affordability Challenges Continue – NAHB
• NAHB Remodelers: What the Data Says – NAHB
• Market Share of 5,000+ Sq. Ft. Homes Edges Higher in 2025 – NAHB
• America’s empty bedrooms are up for grabs. A 20th-century backlash banned a popular affordable housing option. It’s now seeing a revival. – Vox
• August Construction Job Openings – NAHB
• High Frequency Data: Purchase Applications Down 14% YoY; Single Family Inventory Increases – Calculated Risk
• AI Exposure Remains Relatively Low Across Most Construction Occupations – NAHB
• Home Flipping Returns Edge Up After Seven Quarters of Decline – ATTOM
• The astonishing gap between America’s fastest- and slowest-building cities. It shouldn’t take five years to build an apartment building. – Vox 

On other developments:    

• Why Did New Homes Stop Getting Bigger? New houses grew for forty years, then began shrinking in 2015 – Home Economics
• As Baby Boomers Age, Housing Demand Faces a Rising Headwind – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Could Homeownership Reverse the Decline in Birthrates? Researchers looked back at the baby-boom era and found that federal mortgage programs played a part in the country’s population upswing after World War II. – New York Times
• Where Are the Articles About Young People Giving Up on Homeownership? – CEPR
• How did the post-pandemic migration surge affect labor and housing markets? – Brookings
• Portland Real Estate Is Such a Mess That All Housing Is Affordable Housing. Rarely has the Oregon city seen such a narrow price gap between market-rate and affordable units – Wall Street Journal
• US housing crunch puts private equity in midterm campaign crosshairs. FT analysis shows that institutional investors are being blamed for soaring costs – FT
• Down Payments Pick Up But Remain Lower than Previous Year – Realtor.com
• Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Delinquency Rates Increased Slightly in August. Freddie Mac Multi-Family Delinquencies at Highest Rate since Financial Crisis – Calculated Risk
• Where High Rents Drive People Into Poverty. A new study identified 10 locations where higher-than-average housing costs have impacted poverty the most. – New York Times
• The Housing Shortage Is a Major Driver of Poverty. New research identifies states where solving the housing shortage would significantly reduce poverty – Pew
• The Costs of Environmental Land-Use Regulation. Endangered Species Act protections reduced housing construction, including development in already-developed areas, suggesting that better-targeted regulation could increase housing supply while preserving habitat protections. – Cato

On cross-country:

• House prices survived the last interest-rate rise. Will they this time? Supports that shored up the housing market when borrowing costs last rose are gone – The Economist
• Why house prices may be in trouble. In a big serving of bad news, there are crumbs of comfort – The Economist
• UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2026: Zurich and Tokyo lead global housing bubble risk. – UBS

Working papers and conferences:  

• Why housing reforms keep failing. Not all NIMBYs are alike. Dividing the most unreasonable ones from the rest might be the key to getting homes built. – Works in Progress
• AREUEA Policy Forum: Is the Time Right for the Manufactured Housing Sector to Deliver Affordable Homeownership Opportunities? On October 2 – AREUEA
• Too Much Yet Not Enough: Housing Segmentation and Household Consumption in China – IMF
• Quality, Inequality and Understanding Housing Markets – San Francisco Fed
• Zoning and the American Suburb – Philadelphia Fed 
• The Geography of Wealth: Shocks, Mobility and Precautionary Savings – Dallas Fed
• Homeownership and the Distributional Effects of Local Shocks – Dallas Fed
• Mortgage Lock-in: A Review of the Literature – Atlanta Fed
• Policy for short-term rentals: Balancing property rights and community preferences. Short-term rental restrictions do little to improve housing affordability and often impose sweeping burdens on responsible hosts, guests, and platforms. – Reason

On China:

• China home prices remain weak, keeping pressure on economy – Reuters
• Will fresh incentives give China’s housing market more than a short-lived rebound? – South China Morning Post
• Housing prices surge near new Huanggang Port as buyers eye ‘dual-city’ lifestyle – South China Morning Post

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Half of young Australian adults now live with their parents – and it’s not hard to see why. Housing costs are up with renters worst affected and financial stress is also growing, according to the largest survey of its type – The Guardian

On other countries:  

• [Hong Kong] Why a hawkish US Fed won’t derail Hong Kong’s property recovery – South China Morning Post
• [Ireland] Corporate landlord credits profit surge to housing shortage. Firm backed by French insurer Axa nets €24m profit in part from ‘significant undersupply’ in Irish housing market – The Irish Times
• [Germany] Far-left party wins Berlin election, pledging to nationalise housing – Reuters
• [Spain] El precio de la vivienda modera el crecimiento en el 2T – CaixaBank
• [United Kingdom] UK lenders raise mortgage rates as inflation fears intensify. Banks and building societies have added to recent rate increases across their-fixed rate home loans under market pressure – FT
• [United Kingdom] Housebuilders aren’t the only ones who benefit from ‘Help to Buy’. A new equity loan scheme could help people get on the property ladder, though the government might struggle to afford it – FT
• [United Kingdom] Thirty years of buy-to-let: does it have a future? Rents and tenant demand are rising, but landlords are under increasing pressure. – FT