The Unassuming Economist

Please note that Housing View will be on hiatus for the last two week of December and will resume back in January 2022.

On cross-country:

• The laws of attraction: Economic drivers of inter-regional migration, the role of housing, and public policies – VoxEU
• Affordability the casualty amid ever-climbing global property prices – Reuters

On the US:   

• A New Year Brings a New Surge in Housing Prices. People are ricocheting between skyrocketing rents and a red-hot home market, upending old seasonal patterns as job and wage growth drive a new economic cycle. – Bloomberg
• Millennials Are Supercharging the Housing Market. The generation that supposedly didn’t want to buy things now accounts for over half of all home-purchase loan applications; economists expect them to bolster demand for years – Wall Street Journal
• You Won’t be My Neighbor: Opposition to High Density Development – Urban Affairs Review
• Boom in Housing Prices Helps Hawaii More Than Any Other State – Bloomberg
• A Black couple had a White friend show their home and its appraisal rose by nearly half a million dollars – CNN
• What’s Behind the Racial Homeownership Gap in Philadelphia? – Philadelphia Fed
• Black homeownership is declining in Philly – NPR
• Biden taps Thompson for full term as top housing regulator. The move comes after Thompson allies on the Hill urged Biden to keep her at the helm amid reports he planned to replace Thompson this fall. – Politico
• A Refugee Crisis Runs Into a Housing Crisis. Thousands of Afghan refugees are being released from military bases to U.S. cities to rebuild their lives. Settling them into homes amid a rental shortage is proving to be a challenge. – New York Times
• How landlords thwart America’s attempts to house poor people. It is one thing to receive a housing voucher and quite another to successfully use it – The Economist
• As Home Prices Soar Elsewhere, California Starts to Seem Almost Reasonable – UCLA

On China

• The user cost of housing and the price-rent ratio in Shanghai – Regional Science and Urban Economics
• China struggles to shrug off weak consumer spending and property woes. New home prices decline at steepest rate since 2015 while retail sales come in below forecasts – FT
• Kaisa offshore investors in talks to buy group’s distressed loans. Creditors seek inroads into Chinese developers’ opaque restructurings after Evergrande collapse – FT 
• China’s central bank urges backing for affordable housing in Shanghai – Reuters
• Private equity cuts back on China property as Evergrande hits stocks. A third of firms plan to reduce exposure to sector as developer’s default reverberates through market – FT
• China’s Coming Property Correction: A Managed Soft Landing – MacroPolo
• Abandoned Projects Shatter Confidence in China’s Home Market – Bloomberg
• U.S. Home-Price Surge Looks Much Tamer in Government CPI Report – Bloomberg   
• China’s property slowdown sheds light on another worrying debt problem. Local-government financing vehicles, not just developers, are saddled with lashings of debt – The Economist
• China housing market slumps again as another developer runs into trouble. House prices, sales and construction all fell in November as Shimao Group shares plunge and Beijing assesses what to do with Evergrande – The Guardian

On other countries:  

• [Australia] New Zealand has adopted a radical rezoning plan to cut house prices – could it work in Australia? Councils won’t be able to block townhouses or apartments under a sweeping reform aimed at improving affordability – but will it work? And could the idea cross the Tasman? – The Guardian
• [Canada] Canadian Home Prices Surge a Record 25% Amid Persistent Shortage – Bloomberg
• [Germany] Temporal dynamics of rent regulations – The case of the German rent control – Regional Science and Urban Economics
• [Germany] As COVID-19 continues, other issues are coming to the fore – Savills
• [Ireland] Sharon Donnery: The role of central banks in housing markets – Central Bank of Ireland
• [Singapore] Singapore tightens curbs to cool buoyant property market – Reuters
• [United Kingdom] House price push by Bank of England is oddly timed. The central bank has suggested removing one of the post-financial crisis guardrails against runaway mortgage debt – FT
• [United Kingdom] ‘Piecemeal’ rental housing policy fails tenants, warns UK watchdog. The National Audit Office calls for overarching strategy to help renters in difficulties – FT
• [United Kingdom] U.K.’s Fixed Mortgages Mean Faster BOE Rate Rises May Be Needed – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] U.K. Housing Loses Momentum With Second Drop in Asking Prices – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] U.K.’s House Price Boom Driven by ‘Race for Space’, BOE Says – Bloomberg
• [Uruguay] Spillover effects from new housing supply – Regional Science and Urban Economics