The Unassuming Economist

On the US:   

• 2022 home prices will keep rising at or near double digits, predicts the analyst who called the current housing boom – American Enterprise Institute
• Flattening the curve: Pandemic-Induced revaluation of urban real estate – Journal of Financial Economics
• Supporting Philadelphia’s Black Homeowners in the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Crisis – Philadelphia Fed
• Introducing the Brookings and Ashoka Collaborative Innovation Challenge: Valuing Homes in Black Communities – Brookings
• Affordable Housing as a Pathway to Economic Opportunity – Harvard University
• Desperate for Housing Options, Communities Turn to Ballot Initiatives. Cities and counties will vote on measures, like tax increases and curbs on Airbnb, aimed at creating more affordable housing. – New York Times
• In a Supertall Tower, How Much Affordable Housing Is Enough? The only residential building at the World Trade Center will be 25 percent affordable — a real accomplishment, supporters say. Others insist it should be 100 percent. – New York Times
• ‘Palm Beach is sold out’ after frenzied pandemic property sales. Prices are rising as millionaires are priced out by billionaires, pushing them to nearby West Palm Beach – FT
• As Boomers Downsize, Competition Grows for Simpler—but Not Always Smaller—Homes. Smaller houses, desired by aging seniors and young couples, are among the toughest to find – Wall Street Journal
• ‘Gimme Shelter’: Meet California’s housing chiefs – Los Angeles Times
• States under time crunch to provide housing assistance: How to fix it – Brookings
• ‘Don’t Buy Zillow Homes’: A Tale of Failure, Mistrust and Hot Housing Markets. Twitter and TikTok users are raging against the real estate firm as it looks to sell 7,000 homes for $2.8 billion following the failure of a much-vaunted business. – Bloomberg
• Could Zillow buy the neighborhood? iBuyers want to be the Amazon of real estate. What does that mean for the rest of us? – Vox
• Zillow May Have Stumbled, But iBuying Is Here to Stay – Barron’s
• Strip Malls to Homes: An Analysis of Commercial to Residential Conversions in – Terner Center for Housing Innovation
• AEI housing market indicators, October 2021 – American Enterprise Institute
• Institutional Investors Have a Comparative Advantage in Purchasing Homes That Need Repair – Urban Institute
• Eviction and Voter Turnout: The Political Consequences of Housing Instability – Princeton University

On China

• China’s long wait for a tax everyone loves to hate. The government will at last roll out a property tax – The Economist
• The strongest weapon in Xi Jinping’s common prosperity armoury is a property tax – Quartz
• How China’s property crackdown is being felt in a remote city steeped in Communist Party lore. Beijing’s push to reduce excessive borrowing in the property sector and tame house prices is hurting regional finances. The policy tightening could be related to the current political cycle ahead of the 20th Party Congress, some analysts say – South China Morning Post
• Why China May Not Bail Out Evergrande. A complicated political calculus goes into which businesses Beijing cares about most. – Foreign Policy
• Why Beijing will endure property tax’s drag on housing market – South China Morning Post

On other countries:  

• [Australia] Australia’s Hot Housing Market Shows Signs of Cooling Momentum – Bloomberg
• [Australia] Borrowers rush to lock in low interest rates amid expectations of RBA rise. Rising house prices and a resurgent economy could nudge the Reserve Bank to raise rates for first time in 11 years – The Guardian
• [Brazil] Estimating the Economic Value of Zoning Reform – NBER
• [Brazil] How to improve access to housing for the low-income population? – IADB
• [Canada] Bank of Canada’s early lift-off warning may dampen housing boom fanned by speculators – Reuters
• [Hong Kong] What Hong Kong must do to solve the city’s perennial housing and land shortage problems – South China Morning Post
• [Israel] Israel Plans AirBnB Restrictions, Taxes to Curb Housing Prices – Bloomberg
• [Italy] Living on my own: The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on housing demand – Bank of Italy
• [New Zealand] Growing supply will bring down New Zealand house prices, says RBNZ’s Orr – Reuters
• [United Kingdom] Homeowners face biggest hike in mortgage costs since 2008. Data from government’s independent forecasting unit suggests interest payments could increase by 13% in 2023 – The Guardian
• [United Kingdom] Surge in mortgage lending prompted by stamp duty deadline. The end of the tax break in September fuelled lending but the outlook for approvals remains ‘resilient’ – FT
• [United Kingdom] Rising Interest Rates Expected to Cool U.K. Housing Market – Bloomberg