The Unassuming Economist

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Home price forecast for 2026 across 380 housing markets: Zillow versus Moody’s forecast model. The worst of the pain in the housing market might be now and in the next 6 to 9 months. After that, things will begin to feel a little better—but not good. – Fast Company
• When Housing Policy Becomes Monetary Policy – Cato
• Real-time house price model shows U.S. housing market firming – Dallas Fed
• Michelle Tandler on NYC rent control – Marginal Revolution
• December Mortgage Activity Softens Even as Rates Ease – NAHB
• Worst Case Housing Needs for Renters Ticked Down, But Remain High – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Mapped: How Rent Prices Vary Across Major Cities Worldwide – Visual Capitalist
• Around Zero, Noise Looks like Signal. Home prices are rising in some ZIPs and falling in others. This is normal in stagnant markets. – Home Economics  
• House Prices Decline in Local Markets Despite National Growth – NAHB
• Buying More Affordable than Renting in a Majority of Counties, But Home Prices Rising Faster than Rents – ATTOM  

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• America’s new land boom isn’t about housing — or even people. Across the U.S., the AI infrastructure boom is quietly rewiring how land is bought, valued, and governed — often before the public has its say – Quartz
• Commercial Builders Are Losing Their Appetite to Build Anything but Data Centers. Spending on data-center construction is expected to rise by 23% in 2026 – Wall Street Journal
• Stopping Wall Street from competing with main street homebuyers – The White House
• Trump Signs Order Targeting Institutional Housing Investors – Bloomberg
• Trump Outlines Next Steps for Housing Investor Ban. President’s executive order on the issue comes a day before his speech at Davos, where Trump has said he will address housing affordability – Wall Street Journal
• Curbs on Wall Street landlords could stoke house prices, say investors – Reuters
• Trump Is Moving to Bar Wall Street Firms From Buying Single-Family Homes. Here’s What That Would Mean for Affordability – Time
• Trump Says ‘America Will Not Become a Nation of Renters’ as He Touts Restrictions on Investor Homebuyers in Davos Speech – Realtor.com  
• Remodeling Market Sentiment Strengthens in Fourth Quarter of 2025 – NAHB
• Builder Sentiment Loses Ground at Start of 2026 – NAHB
• Building Our Way Out of Our Housing Crisis. Zohran Mamdani should face financial consequences when his ‘warm collectivism’ inevitably results in fewer homes for New Yorkers. – Wall Street Journal
• The Grocery Store at the Center of San Francisco’s Latest Housing Battle. A proposed apartment tower on top of an iconic Safeway highlights tensions between California’s state and local zoning laws. ‘Why does a large parking lot deserve a view of the water?’ – Wall Street Journal
• Lower Rates Combined with Strong Economic Growth Needs Housing Supply Growth to Avoid Higher Home Prices – AEI
• Soft Conditions for Single-Family Built-for-Rent – NAHB
• New Single-Family Home Size Trends: Third Quarter 2025 – NAHB
• 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in December. Altos: Active single-family inventory was up 1.3% week-over-week – Calculated Risk
• Part 2: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-January 2026 – Calculated Risk
• Third Quarter 2025 Multifamily Construction Data – NAHB
• D.R. Horton Posts Lower Profit, Expects Elevated Incentives to Drag Down Second-Quarter Margins. CEO Paul Romanowski says that based on December incentive levels, margins would likely decline in the second quarter – Wall Street Journal
• Single-Family Permits Cooled in the Fall – NAHB
• Private Residential Construction Spending Edges Higher in October on Home Improvements – NAHB
• 40 Million Americans Live Alone – Apollo

On other developments:    

• The Suburbs are Back. Suburban homes have appreciated faster than urban ones since the pandemic – Home Economics
• Homeownership Looks Worse When You Measure it Properly. Millennials and Gen Zs lag far behind prior generations – Home Economics
• Real Estate and Housing Market Outlook – Wharton
• Trump Administration Floats 401(k) Withdrawals for Down Payment on a Home – Realtor.com
• Trump housing plan to allow 401(k) money for down payments, adviser says – Reuters
• Making homes affordable again is easier said than done – Axios
• Housing Market: Limited Impact from Policy – Morgan Stanley
• To Make Homes Affordable Again, Someone Has to Lose Out. Young Americans need home prices to fall. Existing owners don’t want to take a hit. – Wall Street Journal
• The long and winding road to housing legislation – Politico
• How to Fix the Housing Market – A Wealth of Common Sense
• Housing Affordability Is Topic A. Just Ask Rival Mortgage Lenders Rocket and UWM. – Barron’s
• Americans Hit the Brakes on Driving—and It Could Shift the Housing Market in Reverse – Reattor.com 
• The housing squeeze: Affordability remains out of reach – Axios

From a paper by John Beirne, and Nuobu Renzhi:

“This paper provides estimates of oil price pass-through (OPPT) to both producer and consumer prices for nine emerging Asian economies using a time-varying parameter SVAR model over the period 1991–2023. We further examine how global factors affect the transmission of oil prices to producer and consumer prices, specifically via shocks in global output, US monetary policy, and global financial market uncertainty. Overall, we find that OPPT is less than proportionate and mostly higher for OPPT to producer than consumer prices, while pass-through estimates also tend to be higher in the long term. In addition, we find that OPPT has been declining for most Asian EMEs in the period after the global financial crisis of 2008. Finally, while the responsiveness of OPPT to global shocks varies depending on the type of shock, contractionary US monetary policy shocks overall most significantly amplify OPPT for both producer and consumer prices.”

From a paper by Samina Iqbal, and Muhammad Faisal Khan:

“Inflation targeting (IT) has emerged as a dominant monetary policy framework adopted by central banks to enhance price stability and macroeconomic credibility. This study empirically examines the impact of inflation targeting on macroeconomic performance, focusing on inflation control, output stability, and economic growth. Using cross-country evidence from inflation targeting and non-inflation-targeting economies, the analysis evaluates whether IT frameworks deliver superior macroeconomic outcomes. The findings suggest that inflation targeting is associated with lower inflation volatility and improved policy transparency, though its effectiveness depends heavily on institutional strength, fiscal discipline, and financial market development. The study contributes to ongoing policy debates by highlighting both the benefits and limitations of inflation targeting in emerging and developing economies.”

From a paper by Muhammad Ramzan Kalhoro, Ameet Kumar, Khine Kyaw, and Pervaiz Ahmed Memon:

“This paper investigates how financial development and institutional quality influence the negative impact of economic uncertainty on economic growth. Using a panel dataset of 32 countries covering the period 2004–2017, the study examines whether the institutional context can mitigate the adverse effects of uncertainty, and through which channels this effect is transmitted. To address potential endogeneity issues, we employ the system-GMM estimation method and margin plot techniques. The overall level of financial development is measured using principal component analysis (PCA). The results show that financial development reduces the negative impact of uncertainty on economic growth through both the investment and consumption channels. Further analysis reveals that access to finance, financial depth, financial stability, and stock market depth all play significant roles in moderating this relationship. In contrast, financial efficiency shows no mitigating effect. Regarding institutional quality, government stability helps to lessen the adverse effects of uncertainty, while bureaucratic quality does not appear to have a significant influence. The findings highlight the importance of institutional context in shaping how uncertainty affects economic growth and contribute to the limited literature on the role of financial development in this relationship. This study also pioneers the analysis of how institutional quality interacts with financial development to influence the uncertainty–growth nexus. From a policy perspective, governments should promote financial system development to cushion the economy against uncertainty, and policymakers should consider the state of financial markets when designing strategies to sustain growth under uncertain conditions.”

From a paper by Dooyeon Cho, and Seunghwa Rho:

“Using survey data on households’ inflation expectations in Japan, this study investigates how the tone of central bankers’ speeches, measured with FinBERT, a domain-specific large language model, affects these expectations across the business cycle. Our findings indicate that a positive tone in central bank communications significantly boosts inflation expectations during recessions by increasing public confidence and promoting beliefs about future inflation. By contrast, during expansions, this positive tone has little impact. We also find that monetary policy shocks do not significantly affect inflation expectations in Japan. Given the country’s unique economic challenges and prolonged deflation, these findings can provide important policy implications for Japan, as managing inflation expectations is critical to its monetary policy. Overall, our results suggest that central bankers’ speeches in Japan play an important role in shaping inflation expectations, particularly during economic downturns, beyond the influence of conventional policy rate adjustments.”