The Unassuming Economist

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Identifying Undervalued ZIPs – Home Economics
• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 1.5% year-over-year in August. FHFA House Prices up 2.3% YoY in August – Calculated Risk
• US single-family home prices increase in August, FHFA says – Reuters
• Home Price Growth Slows – NAHB
• US single-family home prices increase in August, FHFA says – Reuters
• Inflation Adjusted House Prices 2.8% Below 2022 Peak. Price-to-rent index is 10.2% below 2022 peak – Calculated Risk
• Lower Interest Rates Fail to Offset Effects of High Home Prices – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Home Prices Likely Cooled in August. That’s Good News for Some Buyers. – Barron’s
• Distribution of Mortgage Rates – Apollo
• NMHC on Apartments: Market conditions “Soften” in Q3. Leading indicator for Rents and Apartment Vacancies Negative in Q3 – Calculated Risk
• The market-defying appeal of assumable mortgages. Savvy buyers in the US are wising up to properties packaged up with a historic loan — and a surprisingly low interest rate – FT
• US Mortgage Rates Fall to 6.3%, Boosting Purchase Activity – Bloomberg

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• Existing Home Sales Increase in September – NAHB
• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 4.06 million SAAR in September. Median House Prices Increased 2.1% Year-over-Year – Calculated Risk
• Will New York Voters Choose to Speed Up Housing Construction? – New York Times
• Homebuilders push new frontier for Fannie and Freddie: Construction loans. The policy has had industry interest for years, but recent Trump posts may add – Politico
• A Better Way to Fix Housing. Rather than end the 30-year mortgage, why not build more units? – Wall Street Journal
• Final Look at Housing Markets in September and a Look Ahead to October Sales – Calculated Risk
• D.R. Horton Says Wary Buyers Will Continue Demanding Incentives. The home builder’s fourth-quarter gross margin on home sales fell to 20% from 21.8%, which it attributed mostly to offering larger incentives – Wall Street Journal
• Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Delinquency Rate Increased in September. Multi-Family Delinquency Rate Highest Since Housing Bust (ex-pandemic) – Calculated Risk
• Pending Home Sales Flat Despite Lower Rates – Realtor.com
• Which Local Markets Track National Trends the Most: 2024 Single-Family MAI – NAHB
• California’s New Redistricting Maps Could Quietly Reshape Real Estate Markets – Realtor.com

On other developments:    

• The Fall 2025 Wall Street Journal/Realtor.com Housing Market Ranking – Realtor.com
• The Fed’s MBS Problem: How QE Helped Inflate Housing Markets – Cato
• The Debate Had a Lot of Housing Talk, but the Next Mayor Needs Bigger Ideas – New York Times
• Budget-Friendly Boston-Area Metro Remains the Top Affordable Housing Market in the U.S.  – Realtor.com 
• America’s Top Affordable Housing Market Revealed—5 Key Takeaways – Realtor.com
• ‘More Abundant, Diverse and Affordable’: Missing Middle Housing Proposed as Solution to Housing Crisis in Massachusetts – The Harvard Crimson
• September 2025 Luxury Housing Report: More for Your Money – Realtor.com
• Ranked: U.S. States With the Highest Homelessness Rates – Visual Capitalist
• Austin’s Housing Bust Is Just What America Needs – Bloomberg
• Stretched Thin: The Housing Cost Crisis – Boston Fed
• A Critique of the Urban Institute’s Panel Study on Land Use Reforms to Impact Housing Supply: Evidence of Severe Methodological Gaps – AEI
• The Great Housing Gridlock: Why It Could Spark The Next Market Shift – Seeking Alpha 
• The Hidden Cost of ‘Affordable Housing’. What happens when liberal cities try to circumvent the market – The Atlantic
• Buyers may soon lose their edge in Phoenix housing market – Axios
• How Federal Policy Locked Homeowners—and the Housing Market—in Place – Cato
• Zombie Foreclosure and Vacancy Rates Creep Down – ATTOM

Handbook by Gaby Ramia, Zoe Irving, Elke Heins, Ricardo Velázquez Leyer:

“This compelling Handbook explores how social policies have been adapted and remodelled in response to transformations in work and employment in the twenty-first century. It outlines the history of the welfare-work relationship, assesses the current state of the global workforce and provides theoretical and practical analyses of the work-employment-social policy relationship.”

From a paper by Naveen Kumar & Dibyendu Maiti:

“This paper examines the understudied relationship between anthropogenic global warming and wealth inequality, two defining challenges of the twenty-first century, by focusing on the impact of temperature on subnational wealth inequality across 1000 regions worldwide, using data from the Global Data Lab spanning the period from 1992 to 2021. Building on earlier climate-economy studies, this paper estimates heterogeneous parameter models under a common factor framework, which addresses econometric challenges of heterogeneous slopes, cross-sectional spillover, unobserved common factors, and explicitly allows the temperature effect on wealth to differ across subnational regions. Our preferred specification estimates provide suggestive evidence that a 1 C rise in temperature is associated with a modest increase in wealth inequality, measured by Gini coefficients, approximately 0.54 units. The effect of precipitation on wealth inequality remains unclear. Second, the results suggest that poorer and hotter regions, predominantly located in the Global South, are adversely affected by temperature-induced wealth inequality. Third, we empirically identify two key plausible channels among others through which temperature worsens wealth inequality: (i) health and education-induced reduction in labor productivity, (ii) worsening gender equality. Our findings are consistently robust across alternative specifications, datasets, and estimation strategies. The evidence suggests that climate change will significantly shape the trajectory of future global inequality and poses serious challenges for sustainable development under business as usual emission scenarios.”

On cross-country:

• EU finally takes ownership of housing crisis. The pressure is now on Brussels to adopt real measures — or risk pushing more voters into the arms of the far right. – Politico

Working papers and conferences:

• Is There a Puzzle in Underwater Mortgage Default? – Cleveland Fed
• Precision Without Labels Detecting Cross-Applicants in Mortgage Data Using Unsupervised Learning – Philadelphia Fed 
• The Social and Individual Effects of Homeless Shelter: Evidence from Temporary Shelter Provision – NBER

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Australian house prices rising at fastest rate in nearly four years, data shows. Brisbane overtakes Canberra as second-most expensive house market, after Sydney, with median prices rising by nearly $40,000 – The Guardian

On other countries:  

• [Aruba] Aruba’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Bahamas] The Bahamas Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Canada] Housing Market Monitor – National Bank of Canada
• [Canada] Canada: Home prices continue their moderate growth in September – National Bank of Canada
• [Cayman Islands] Cayman’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [United Kingdom] Prime Scotland House Prices – Q3 2025 – Savills
• [United Kingdom] Prime London house prices – Q3 2025 – Savills
• [United Kingdom] Housing market slows amid fears Reeves will increase property taxes. Post-summer bounce in activity fails to materialise as buyers and sellers, in the south especially, opt to ‘wait and see’ – The Guardian

From a paper by William Gale, Ian Berlin, and Sam Thorpe:

“How should the U.S. respond to its unsustainable fiscal outlook? How and when a country should fiscally consolidate depends on its existing circumstances, policies, and institutions. We review the experiences of other countries that attempted consolidations and highlight lessons applicable to the U.S. We find that (a) the U.S. does not face a short-term crisis, so it can employ gradual adjustments, which may minimize short-term harm, (b) consolidation should occur in a strong economy with monetary accommodation, and (c) tax increases (spending cuts) could plausibly play a larger (smaller) role in US consolidations than in European adjustments.”