The Unassuming Economist

On cross-country:

• How to Solve the Global Housing Crisis: Liberate Supply Not Subsidise Demand – The Times of Israel

Working papers and conferences:

• What About the Close Calls? In the Mortgage Market, the Behavior of One Group of Loan Applicants Is Particularly Enlightening – Philadelphia Fed
• What Is My Home Worth? – Philadelphia Fed
• Property Tax PassThrough to Renters A Quasi-Experimental Approach – Philadelphia Fed
• Real-time house price model shows U.S. housing market firming – Dallas Fed
• SI 2026 Real Estate – NBER
• Building costs aren’t to blame for high home prices. The link between construction costs and real estate prices has weakened in recent decades, finds research from UChicago Booth – University of Chicago
• Pricing Residential Mortgage Credit Risk in the Post-GFC Era – NBER
• Mapping Crowding, Tenure, Rents and Segregation in the Neighborhoods of Major European Cities around 1900 and Today – International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

On China:

• Real Estate Crash Weighs on China’s Economic Growth. Falling apartment prices have erased the savings of millions of Chinese households, but exports lifted the economy to 5 percent growth last year. – New York Times

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Improving productivity growth and housing affordability would support Australia’s high living standards – OECD
• [Australia] OECD calls on Australia to raise GST and increase affordable housing amid budget deficit. Survey by organisation, which is led by former Liberal senator Mathias Cormann, says economy is ‘now normalising’, after post-pandemic struggle – The Guardian

On other countries:  

• [Canada] Canadian Housing Market in Winter Freeze as Prices, Sales Decline – Bloomberg
• [Canada] Out of Reach: Unlocking Canada’s housing affordability crisis. Many Canadian housing markets face a troubling paradox: homes remain unaffordable for buyers even as construction and land costs have receded, leaving many — especially younger Canadians — feeling that homeownership is out of reach. – Senate of Canada
• [Denmark] Denmark should continue to improve public finances, housing affordability and family policies to sustain growth and living standards – OECD
• [Korea]  Seoul Housing Rally Gathers Pace, Deepening BOK’s Policy Dilemma – Bloomberg
• [Nigeria] Lagos Town Demolitions Leave Thousands of Nigerians Homeless – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] What’s next for the UK housing market in 2026? – Lloyds Banking Group
• [United Kingdom] UK lenders cut mortgage rates in race for new year buyers. December fall in base rate and relatively benign Budget triggers swath of cheaper deals – FT
• [United Kingdom] House prices jump across Britain as sentiment rebounds after Budget. January increase reverses sharp contractions in previous months – FT
• [United Kingdom] U.K. House Prices See Record January Jump as Post-Budget Uncertainty Fades. The 2.8% gain represents the largest January increase in the 25-year history of Rightmove’s House Price Index – Wall Street Journal
• [United Kingdom] Inner London house prices fall at fastest rate since global financial crisis. Sharp annual decline in most expensive boroughs underscores impact of Budget uncertainty – FT
• [United Kingdom] London House Building Collapses 84% in a Decade as Sales Plunge – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] London House Prices End Longest Losing Streak Since 2009 – Bloomberg

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 David Sturrock, and Peter Levell:

“We study the impact of the UK house price boom on the intergenerational persistence of homeownership, housing wealth, location and earnings. Using price variation driven by geographic differences in the elasticity of housing supply, we find that increases in local house prices have a negative effect on homeownership and increase the intergenerational persistence of housing wealth. We show that by age 28 to 37 around 15% of parental gross housing wealth differences are passed through to children’s gross housing wealth. This is not explained by parental housing wealth gains increasing childrens’ likelihood of becoming homeowners, but is largely explained by the children of wealthier parents being more likely to move to and own a home in London. Moving to this high house price and high earning part of the country comes alongside an effect of parental housing wealth on occupation choice and a positive effect of parental housing wealth on the likelihood of being a top earner for men. Increased parental housing wealth causes larger wealth transfers to adult children. We interpret these findings with a model in which wealthier parents help their children overcome liquidity constraints to move to high house price parts of the country. Counterfactual simulations show that the UK house price boom doubled the intergenerational persistence of housing wealth and caused living in London to become more concentrated among the children of the wealthy.”

On cross-country:

• House prices and rents went up in Q3 2025 – Eurostat
• House prices up by 5.1% in the euro area – Eurostat
• Trump’s planned limits on US property investing could spur foray into UK housing market. Ban on private equity firms buying single-family homes in US raises concerns institutions could deepen housing crisis on Britain – The Guardian

Working papers and conferences:

• The Global Macroprudential Database – IMF
• New evidence on the resilience benefit of borrower-based measures when interest rates go up – VoxEU
• Aging and Housing Returns – NBER
• Climate Policies in the Housing Market – Paris School of Economics
• House Prices, Fertility Rates, and Homeownership: Evidence from The UK – SSRN
• Heterogeneous Selection of Price Spillover Channels in Housing Markets – SSRN
• Measuring Housing Market Slack – SSRN
• Mapping excess housing demand using big search data – SSRN

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] It’s getting easier to build a new home – for now. The price gap between building a home and buying an existing one – which has stopped a lot of new projects – has narrowed. But it may not last. – Financial Review
• [New Zealand] New Zealand House Prices Set for Slight Gains in 2026, BNZ Says – Bloomberg

On other countries:  

• [Canada] Canadian Housing Market in Winter Freeze as Prices, Sales Decline – Bloomberg
• [Canada] Canadians Are Furious After Real Estate Funds Lock Up Their Money. Funds stung by the property downturn limit client withdrawals, after assuring ordinary investors they were safe – Bloomberg
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong property: Citi lifts forecast after Morgan Stanley’s upgrade – South China Morning Post
• [Singapore] Singapore Home Sales Hit Multi-Year High Despite Recent Lull – Bloomberg
• [United Arab Emirates] UAE Residential Property Price Report – December 2025 – REIDIN
• [United Arab Emirates] Dubai Residential Project Launch Tracker – REIDIN
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices rise by least since March 2024, Halifax data shows – Reuters
• [United Kingdom] Homes on sale in England should be tested for lead, says water watchdog. Call by Drinking Water Inspectorate comes after FT revealed millions of people may be unknowingly exposed to toxic metal – FT
• [United Kingdom] How the 1990s and 2000s property price boom reduced social mobility – Institute for Fiscal Studies
• [United Kingdom] Britain’s 90s Housing Boom Handed Rich Kids Best Jobs, IFS Says – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] Multimillion-Pound London Homes Hit by Sudden, Gaping Cracks. Londoners face a dangerous acceleration of subsidence risks, as record temperatures fueled by climate change destabilize the clay foundations on which most of the UK capital’s homes are built. – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] U.K. House Prices Expected to Rise But London Likely to Straggle. Zoopla report shows that average house prices are likely to increase 1.5% – Wall Street Journal
• [United Kingdom] Share of London homes sold at a loss higher than anywhere else in England. Lossmaking sales are the latest sign of weakness in the capital’s property market – FT

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