The Unassuming Economist

On cross-country:

• A re-examination of housing bubbles: Evidence from European countries – Economic Systems

On the US:    

• Are U.S. Housing Markets Hot, Hot, Hot? – SSRN
• Vacant Homes Everywhere. Census surveys reveal U.S. vacancy rates, but applying the data to a home search or to social issues is complex. – New York Times
• Wells Fargo Rejected Half Its Black Applicants in Mortgage Refinancing Boom. Fewer than half of Black applicants were approved by the biggest bank mortgage lender – Bloomberg
• Housing Market Interventions and Residential Mobility in the San Francisco Bay Area – San Francisco Fed   
• How Do Homeowner Experiences Vary by Race and Ethnicity? Neighborhood Differences between Hispanic and White Homebuyers – San Francisco Fed   
• The Fed Hits the Housing-Market Wall. There are two ways policy makers could ease stagflation for consumers and industry players. Neither one is without serious challenges. – Bloomberg
• Rent-Control Measures Are Back as Home Rents Reach New Highs. Laws on how much landlords can raise prices are debated in more than a dozen states – Wall Street Journal
• How the War on Sprawl Caused High Housing Prices. Since the 1960s, planners have convinced many state and regional governments to limit the physical spread of urban areas. – Reason
• The housing market’s key metric just took an ugly turn for homebuyers – Fortune
• Introducing “Housing Finance Watch” and “Inflation Watch” – American Enterprise Institute
• The Great Housing Inflation as a Long-Term Policy Failure. High prices of homes and rental apartments have very little to do with today’s general inflation, but reflect decades of perverse policies that hurt both renters and aspiring homeowners. – The American Prospects
• People Deserve to Know Their Houses Are Going to Burn. The old way of insuring against fires isn’t working anymore. – The Atlantic
• Housing Affordability Conditions Wane in January 2022 – National Association of Realtors
• The More Density We Build, the More Valuable “Neighborhood Character” Will Be – Freddie deBoer
• As Rents Soar, States Take Aim at Local Zoning Rules. Local officials, however, say they should decide what gets built where. – PEW

On China

• China Home Prices Drop Faster as Slump Shows No End in Sight. New home prices fell for a sixth straight month in February. Easing measures have failed to arrest a decline in sales – Bloomberg
• Chinese house prices slip lower despite policy loosening. Real estate sector is still struggling but there are signs of recovery in wider market – FT

On other countries:  

• [India] Coming UBS Lists Top Real Estate Bets As It Sees Mumbai ‘Construction Boom’ Ahead – Bloomberg
• [New Zealand] FOMO Turns to FOOP in New Zealand’s Cooling Housing Market. Credit squeeze and rising borrowing costs put brake on demand. House prices expected to fall by as much as 10% this year – Bloomberg