The Unassuming Economist

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Trump says US housing agencies to launch $200bn mortgage bond-buying spree. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to carry out purchases – FT
• Trump announces $200B bond purchase in bid to lower mortgage rates. FHFA Director Bill Pulte says Fannie and Freddie will buy bonds from the public market. – Politico
• Trump Orders Fannie and Freddie to Buy $200 Billion in Mortgage Bonds. The move, a bid to make homes more affordable, would be a back-to-future moment for the two mortgage firms. Buying risky mortgage bonds helped push them to near-bankruptcy in 2008. – New York Times
• Trump orders his ‘Representatives’ to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds – Reuters
• Mortgage Bonds, Home Lenders Jump as Trump Targets Housing Costs – Bloomberg
• Pulte backs away from 50-year mortgage. The Federal Housing director said the president is reviewing between 30 and 50 ideas to bring down housing costs. – Politico
• Will Mortgage Rates Improve More than Expected in 2026? – Zillow
• Mortgage Applications Today: Home Loan Refinancing Rebounds—Soaring 40% After Holiday Slump – Realtor.com 
• Housing Payments Drop to Lowest Level in 2 Years As Mortgage Rates Decline – Redfin
• The top 10 hottest housing markets in 2026: Zillow – The Hill
• Top 5 Metros Where Home Prices Are Falling the Fastest – Realtor.com
• Mamdani’s First Big Move to Help Renters Is Dealt a Blow by Court. Summit Properties USA won an auction on Friday to buy more than 5,000 apartments out of bankruptcy from the Pinnacle Group despite City Hall’s efforts to intervene. – New York Times
• Rent Concessions Are on the Rise in America’s Sunbelt Cities. Cities like Phoenix overbuilt upscale housing when remote workers started showing up during the pandemic. Now that extra inventory means perks for renters. – Wall Street Journal
• Household Real Estate Asset Values Fall in the Third Quarter – NAHB
• Blaming short-term rentals won’t solve the housing crisis. Blaming and banning short-term rental platforms for high housing costs ignores the history of laws that have contributed to the current problem. – Reason
• U.S. Home Equity Dips From Record Highs in 2025Q3, as Home Values Ease – Realtor.com
• Manhattan Rents Hover Near Highs in Sign of Affordability Crunch – Bloomberg

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• The Landlords Are Not the Problem – New York Times
• The Trump-Warren Housing Condominium. Banning investors from buying homes won’t reduce home prices. – Wall Street Journal
• President Trump and Institutional Investors in Single-Family Rentals – AEI
• Trump Blindsides Wall Street Allies With Crackdown on Housing Investors. Move after 2008 housing crash to buy and rent out single-family homes comes under fire – Wall Street Journal
• Do Institutional Investors Raise Housing Prices? – Home Economicus
• Buying a home is 150% more expensive than in 2019. But here’s why Trump’s plan to shut out institutional investors could raise costs even more – Fortune
• Two Fed officials say key to fixing US housing more about supply than financing – Reuters
• Can Trump Lower Home Prices by Taking On Wall Street Buyers? – Bloomberg
• Trump Wants Cheaper Housing. How Pulte Could Pressure Builders to Deliver It. – Barron’s
• Trump Administration Takes Aim at Home-Builder Stock Buybacks. Housing finance chief Bill Pulte says home builders aren’t doing enough to lower housing costs – Wall Street Journal
• Housing Starts Decreased to 1.246 million Annual Rate in October – Calculated Risk
• Residential Construction Softens Amid Ongoing Housing Market Headwinds – NAHB
• Townhouse Construction Share Gains Continue – NAHB
• Why are housing starts still falling despite lower mortgage rates? – Los Angeles Times
• US Housing Starts Fall to Lowest Level Since May 2020 – Bloomberg
• US single-family housing starts rebound in October, building permits dip – Reuters 
• A powerful force has been holding back the housing market. It’s finally easing. The U.S. housing market recently reached a key milestone that could lead to more buying and selling. – Washington Post
• What a New Betting Market for Housing Prices Means for Home Buyers and Sellers. Slower-moving indicators have widely been considered the most reliable data for home buyers and sellers – Wall Street Journal
• Growth for Custom Home Building – NAHB
• How Mamdani and Cea Weaver Plan to End Private Housing. Their proposals would make many apartment buildings impossible to sustain. That’s by design. – Wall Street Journal
• Top 5 Metros Where Homes Are Piling Up on the Market – Realtor.com
• 2nd Look at Local Housing Markets in December – Calculated Risk
• Housing markets where homebuyers are gaining power heading into spring 2026
• In total, 17 states are back above pre-pandemic 2019 housing inventory levels. Here’s what that tells us. – Fast Company
• New Home Sales at 737,000 Annual Rate in October. Median New Home Price is Down 15% from the Peak due to Change in Mix – Calculated Risk
• Building Material Price Growth Remains Elevated in November – NAHB
• New York State to Loosen Environmental Rules to Speed Up Homebuilding. Review process can add two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs to housing projects – Wall Street Journal
• US existing home sales accelerate in December – Reuters
• Home Sales in December Jump 5.1%, Biggest Gain in Nearly 2 Years. Easing mortgage rates and slower growth in home prices boosted sales to the highest level since February 2023 – Wall Street Journal
• Existing Home Sales Climb to Near 3-Year High in December – NAHB
• Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-January 2026 – Calculated Risk

On other developments:    

• Trump officials prepare executive order on housing affordability. More details are expected when President Donald Trump speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month. – Washington Post
• As President Trump Tackles Housing Affordability, Progress Emerges — and More Relief Is on the Horizon – The White House
• This Is Not the Way to Make Housing More Affordable – Bloomberg
• How Trump policies are colliding with housing market – Axios  
• Trump is planning to rescue a crucial part of the American Dream. The president is moving to end Wall Street’s grip on housing prices. – Washington Post
• Trump and Affordability. They’re just not that into each other. – Jared Bernstein
• Facing Political Pressure, Trump Seeks Answer to Rising Housing Costs. White House officials have explored a vast array of ideas as the president looks to unfurl a housing affordability plan at an economic conference this month. – New York Times
• Trump’s New Housing Strategy Is All About Boosting Buyers Now. Administration says more proposals are on the way, but it has yet to address the shortage at the root of the affordability crisis – Wall Street Journal
• As Trump Pushes Housing Affordability, His Mortgage Chief Undermines It. Under Bill Pulte, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have pulled away from efforts to help low-income people buy homes. – New York Times
• The cities with the oldest homes in America — and no, they’re not all in New England. Why so many U.S. homes predate 1960, and how aging inventory is reshaping markets, according to Redfin – Quartz
• The Best Markets for First-Time Homebuyers in 2026 – Realtor.com
• The Past, Present, and Future of Public Housing: Dunlop Lecture with Kenzie Bok – JCHS
• The Housing Market’s Lock-In Effects – AEI
• Real-Estate Tech Gets the Message: Focus on Affordability. Venture investors target startups aiming to ease the difficulty of buying a home – Wall Street Journal
• U.S. Foreclosure Activity Increases in 2025 – ATTOM

From a paper by Farhan Wahid, Noman Shafi, Ahsan Abbas, and Muhammad Junaid Bilal:

“This research has been undertaken for the investigation of the association of the renewable energy consumption (REC) with the foreign direct investment (FDI) along with moderating effect of the renewable internal energy resources (RIFS). This study’s prime objective is examining the influence of the REC on the FDI, and understanding how the RIFS impacts the REC and the FDI relationship. The data has been collected from the database of the World Bank for countries belonging to OECD for the period beginning from 2011 and ending in 2020. The results have been drawn by using STATA 17 software which show significant values for the regression test, the unit root tests and the GMM test. Furthermore, this research highlights that the RIFS moderates the relationship between the said variables and results show that when there is an involvement of the renewable sources of the energy, the REC’s effect on the FDI is moderated. Concludingly, it has been analyzed that the relationship of the REC with the FDI is significant while underscoring the RIFS’ role in the production of renewable energy. This study suggests that the RIFS in the energy sector can increase the FDI.”

From a paper by Richard Schmitz,, Franziska Flachsbarth, Leonie Sara Plaga, Martin Brauna, and
Philipp Härtel:

“Recent events, including the pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, supply chain disruptions, and climate
change impacts, have exposed the critical need to ensure energy security and resilience in energy
systems. We review existing definitions and interrelations between energy security and resilience,
conceptualising these terms in the context of energy system transformations. We introduce a classification of disturbances into shock events and slowburn processes to highlight key challenges to energy system resilience. Examples illustrate their distinct impacts on technical, economic, and environmental system performance over time.We compile relevant recourse options across resilience capacity levels and system planning horizons to address these challenges, emphasising actionable strategies for an increasingly integrated energy system. Finally, we propose policy recommendations to integrate shock events and slow burn processes into future energy system planning, enabling forward-looking decision-making and system design to analyse and mitigate potential disruptions.”

Working papers and conferences:

• Call for Papers: 6th Workshop on Rent Control on June 22-23 – KTH Royal Institute of Technology
• Credit Constraints and the Redistribution of Housing Wealth – CEPR
• Not Cashing In on Cashing Out: An Analysis of Low Cash-Out Refinance Rates – Philadelphia Fed
• Is it better to rent or buy? Much depends on long-term interest rates – The Economist

On China:

• China’s property woes could last until 2030. Despite the best efforts of its social-media censors – The Economist
• How China’s property crisis helped crash its art market. A gold-framed view into the world of China’s wealthy – The Economist

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [New Zealand] New Zealand House Prices Tipped to Rise After ‘Stagnant’ Year – Bloomberg

On other countries:  

• [Canada] Toronto Housing Market Ended 2025 With Declines in Prices, Sales – Bloomberg
• [Canada] Quiet December caps off lackluster 2025 for Canada’s housing markets – RBC
• [Korea] Seoul Apartment Prices Continue to Rise Ahead of BOK Meeting – Bloomberg
• [Portugal] Portugal’s support for young home buyers proving effective, minister says – Reuters
• [United Kingdom] UK Housebuilding in Sharpest Drop Since Covid Lockdown of 2020 – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] Britain’s Housing Crisis Is Hitting New Depths – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] Britain’s Housing Crisis Has Seeds in the 1930s – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] House price growth to beat the consensus forecast in 2026 – Capital Economics

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• How a Rent Freeze Helped Destroy Public Housing – AEI
• Mamdani Names Housing Leader and Pledges ‘Rental Rip-off’ Hearings. Mayor Zohran Mamdani named a housing commissioner and announced that the city would hold public hearings where frustrated renters could voice their complaints. – New York Times
• The Contradictions of Supply-Side Socialism. Zohran Mamdani signs executive orders to speed up new construction. His housing policy picks also want to abolish private property. – Reason
• The Rent-Control Slums of New York. Mayor Mamdani tries to stop a bankruptcy his new housing czar caused. – Wall Street Journal
• Democratic Sanity on Rent Control. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey opposes a destructive state referendum. – Wall Street Journal
• Asking Rents Decline Year-over-year – Calculated Risk
• Mortgage Rates End 2025 at the Lowest Level of the Year – NAHB
• Higher interest rates transform housing market, Texas real estate workforce – Dallas Fed

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• Donald Trump moves to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes. Change would hit buyout groups such as Blackstone and Cerberus that have amassed large residential portfolios – FT
• White House moves to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes. Change would hit buyout groups such as Blackstone and Cerberus that have amassed large residential portfolios – FT
• President Donald Trump Is ‘Taking Steps’ To Ban Investors From Buying Single-Family Homes – Realtor.com
• Trump says he’ll ban large investors from buying homes, with few details. Politicians in both parties are trying to respond to voter anger over the price of housing. – Washington Post
• Trump’s Pledge to Evict Big Investors from Housing Market Hits Rental Stocks – Wall Street Journal
• Trump says he will ban big investors from buying single-family homes. Median sale price was at $410,800 last year, according to the Census Bureau, even as Trump campaigned on affordability – The Guardian
• Trump Targets Institutional Investors in Affordable Housing Push – Bloomberg
• Barring Institutional Investors From Buying Homes Won’t Make Housing More Affordable – and Would Likely Make Things Worse. There is no evidence that institutional investors increase prices. Barring them from the market could actually exacerbate the housing crisis. – Reason  
• Trump pushes to limit Wall Street’s footprint in housing. Housing affordability is set to be a central battleground in this year’s midterm elections. – Politico
• Housing Supply & Demand Explained in 1 Graph. And why house prices are so erratic – Real Estate Decoded
• Homebuilding and Remodeling Depend on Immigrant Labor in Major Metros – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Why America stopped building the ‘starter home’. Concepts about starter homes seem inconsistent with today’s prices and expansive floor plans, leaving many first-time homebuyers with few options. – Washington Post
• President Trump’s New Housing Policy Should Include Massive Privatization of Federal Land. The U.S. government currently owns 28% of the land in the United States, which is way too much. – Reason
• The Contradictions of Supply-Side Socialism. Zohran Mamdani signs executive orders to speed up new construction. His housing policy picks also want to abolish private property. – Reason
• Washington D.C.’s Stockpile of Old Offices Makes It a Mecca for Housing Conversions. Nation’s capital converts more offices to apartments than almost anywhere else – Wall Street Journal
• Construction Job Openings Increased in November – NAHB
• 1st Look at Local Housing Markets in December – Calculated Risk 
• Section 8 cuts would send shockwaves through the housing market – The Hill

On other developments:    

• Two Simple Ways to Fix Housing in America – Bloomberg
• This Is Not the Way to Make Housing More Affordable – Bloomberg
• Americans Are Looking to the Midwest to Find Affordability. The region offers housing costs below the national median and steady wage growth – Wall Street Journal
• US Housing Outlook – Apollo
• Richmond ranked a top housing market for 2026 – Axios
• Yes, Politicians Should Run on Affordability – New York Times
• The Condo Market Hasn’t Been This Bad in Over a Decade. Condo prices this fall posted their biggest declines since 2012, hit by rising homeowner-association dues and weaker demand – Wall Street Journal
• Trump Rolls Back Tariffs on Furniture and Kitchen Cabinets. The president has watered down import levies on a host of products in recent months to address concerns about the cost of living – Wall Street Journal
• Zillow’s CEO Is Ready for Another Slow Year in the US Housing Market. The $16 billion company is pushing more into the transaction side of the real estate industry, which Jeremy Wacksman calls ‘a better business to be in.’ – Bloomberg
• Housing Share of GDP: Third Quarter 2025 – NAHB
• The Housing Bubble and Mortgage Debt as a Percent of GDP – Calculated Risk
• Dems launch election-year affordable housing blitz – Axios
• Why housing reforms struggle to deliver on their central promise. Attempts to lower home prices will falter without follow-through. – Washington Post
• Tariffs, Manufacturing, Housing: Questions for 2026 – Cato
• The Best Markets for First-Time Homebuyers in 2026 Revealed – Realtor.com 
• Home Affordability Remains Strained Nationwide, with Modest Fourth Quarter Improvement – ATTOM