Housing View – September 29, 2023

On cross-country:

  • The Upside to Slumping Home Prices – Barrons
  • The Economics of Green Buildings that are Both Low Carbon and Resilient to Natural Disaster Risk. Who Certifies Quality for Infrequent Purchases? – Climate Economics


Working papers and conferences:

  • Portfolio Flows, Household Rebalancing, and House Prices – SSRN
  • The Intergenerational Transmission of Housing Wealth – SSRN
  • Rent Control and Neighborhood Income. Evidence from Vienna, Austria – SSRN
  • Decoding the Spatial Dynamics of Sales and Rental Prices in a High-Pressure Portuguese Housing Market: A Random Forest Approach for the Lisbon Metropolitan Area – SSRN
  • On the Slope of the Beveridge Curve in the Housing Market – SSRN   


On the US—developments on house prices, rent, permits and mortgage:    

  • Welcoming remarks by Governor Bowman on post-pandemic challenges and strategies for addressing rental housing affordability – FED
  • August 2023 Rental Report: Renting A Starter Home Is A More Affordable Option Than Buying in All but Three of the Largest U.S. Metros – Realtor.com
  • Economic, Housing and Mortgage Market Outlook – September 2023 – Freddie Mac
  • World’s Mega-Rich Are Betting on US Renters to Grow Their Billions. Ortega, Ofer have bought US apartment properties recently. Falling prices and rent growth have lured richest buyers – Bloomberg
  • Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 1.0% year-over-year in July; New all-time High. “Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) seasonally adjusted monthly House Price Index … rose 4.6 percent from July 2022 to July 2023.” – Calculated Risk
  • New Home Sales Weaken in August on Higher Mortgage Rates – NAHB
  • August Home Sales Declined to Slowest Pace Since January. Prices were up from year earlier with a limited number of houses on the market – Wall Street Journal
  • Home Prices Continue to Rise Despite Sales Slowdown. Housing supply “needs to essentially double to moderate home price gains,” says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. – National Association of Realtors
  • Home Prices and Interest Rates Still Rising, Shutting Out More Potential Homebuyers – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies


On the US—other developments:
    

  • Climate change is coming for America’s property market. Insurance is supposed to signal risk. Policymakers should let it – The Economist
  • Parts of America are becoming uninsurable. Blame growth in hazardous areas, climate change and bad policy – The Economist
  • ‘A contradiction’: U.S. subsidizes ‘sustainable’ buildings, but leaves them vulnerable to floods. The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system is the gold standard for environmental design. But more than 800 LEED-certified buildings are at risk from climate-related disasters. – Politico
  • The Value of Residential Real Estate Broke a New Record $52 Trillion. The total value of the U.S. housing market is 49% higher than before the pandemic. – Zillow
  • Final Look at Local Housing Markets in August – Calculated Risk
  • New Research Sheds Light on the Economic Consequences of Evictions. Yale researchers use big data to study the link between evictions and poverty in Chicago and New York City. – Yale
  • How Would a Government Shutdown Impact the Housing Market? Low Demand in D.C., Possible Temporary Dip in Mortgage Rates – Redfin
  • Why Don’t We Just Build New Cities? Yearning for a blank slate crosses the ideological spectrum—but sooner or later, new places will face the same old problems. – The Atlantic


On China:

  • Why Are China’s Households in the Doldrums? – New York Fed
  • China Has Second Thoughts About Controlling Prices in Its Multi Trillion-Dollar Housing Market. Authorities imposed rules against ‘malicious’ price cuts but now are rethinking them, with hard-to-predict consequences for the economy – Wall Street Journal
  • Evergrande Sends Chilling Warning to China Real Estate Investors. The developer’s restructuring plan is in tatters, raising questions over the government’s stance – Bloomberg
  • How Country Garden Plays Into China’s Property Mess – Bloomberg
  • Teetering China Property Giants Undercut Xi’s Revival Push. Evergrande drama hurts sentiment before key sales season. Developers need cash from sales as slump hurts economy – Bloomberg
  • China property: accelerating meltdown threatens other markets. Nervousness over the risk of contagion could spread into commodities – FT
  • China Developers Drop Most in 9 Months on Evergrande Woes. Bloomberg Intelligence gauge posts biggest drop this year Evergrande’s restructuring uncertainties hit sentiment – Bloomberg
  • Real Estate Crisis Triggers New Alarms Over China’s Shadow Banks. A financially troubled firm has stopped paying investors, risking panic and testing the Chinese government’s resolve to take on debts from its property crisis. – New York Times
  • China property crisis: Country Garden faces reckoning as sluggish economy, bets on smaller cities unravel. Beleaguered Country Garden faces US$14.9 billion in debt maturity in the next year, as it tries to avoid becoming latest Chinese developer to default. Country Garden bet big on future growth in China’s tier 3 and tier 4 cities, where overbuilding and declining population now threaten property prices – South China Morning Post


On other countries:
 

  • [Austria] The Hidden Failures of Social Housing in ‘Red Vienna’. A new report details how the city’s famed social housing system is suffering from diminishing affordability, deteriorating quality, and funding shortfalls. – Reason
  • [Germany] German House Prices Fall at Steepest Pace Since at Least 2000 – Bloomberg
  • [Germany] Germany’s Scholz Tells Homeowners They Can Cope with 4% Rates. Chancellor supports ECB’s monetary-tightening campaign. Lack of savings, not just rates, weighing on house prices – Bloomberg
  • [Germany] Germany’s Housing Sector Slumps Into Crisis – AFP
  • [Germany] Germany drops stricter energy savings requirements for houses – FT
  • [Hong Kong] Hong Kong Relaxes Mortgage Rules as Property Market Falters. Down payment reduced for some homes under construction. Move comes as prices continue to be weighed by higher rates – Bloomberg
  • [Hong Kong] With interest rates likely to have peaked, Hong Kong home prices will soon begin to look up, Knight Frank analyst says. Falling global interest rates should boost property prices, but any gains in Hong Kong could be delayed until there is a broader economic recovery locally and in China. Lived-in home prices in Hong Kong fell 1.1 per cent in July, the most this year, as rising interest rates kept buyers on the sidelines – South China Morning Post
  • [Hong Kong] Different times: Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan hints decade-old property curbs have had their day as home prices slide. Paul Chan says the property market situation is different from that when the government introduced the management measures in 2010. Chan returned home after touring Europe at the head of a 130-strong delegation in effort to tout Hong Kong as top business destination – South China Morning Post
  • [India] India considering $7.2 bln housing loan interest subsidy scheme- govt sources – Reuters
  • [Portugal] Portugal approves 30% cut in mortgage rates for struggling borrowers – Reuters
  • [South Korea] South Korea to Shore Up Housing Supply With More Loan Guarantees. Ceiling on loans will rise to 70% of total costs, from 50%. Type of debt was at the heart of Korea’s 2022 credit crunch – Bloomberg
  • [United Kingdom] The UK Might Solve Its Housing Shortage by 2100. A root-and-branch reset of the planning system is required to break the logjam. – Bloomberg  
  • [United Kingdom] First-time buyers in UK drop by a fifth as higher mortgage costs bite. Lender says homes needing renovation are most in demand as people seek cheaper properties – The Guardian
  • [United Kingdom] UK home sellers increase discounts to secure deals, Zoopla data shows. Reductions rose in September to 4.2% of original asking price, the highest level since early 2019 – FT 

Posted by at 5:00 AM

Labels: Global Housing Watch

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