The Unassuming Economist

On cross-country:

• Bedrooms for sale highlight the depths of Europe’s housing crisis – Reuters
• Housing crisis: why prices are rising and what the EU is doing about it. Rising house prices and rents are a big concern for many Europeans. Read on for key facts and what the EU is doing about the issue. – European Parliament

Working papers and conferences:

• How Costly Is Permitting in Housing Development? – MIT
• When Monetary and Macroprudential Policies Tighten Together: Evidence from the Czech Mortgage Market – Czech National Bank
• Call for Papers: 6th Workshop on Rent Control on June 22-23 – DIW Berlin
• Nighttime light metrics for analysing urban-rural economic disparities: A case study in 36 Chinese metropolitan areas – Cities

On China:

• The rotten tail of China’s property bust. Officials want to spread the pain as widely as possible – The Economist
• March Kicks Off the Start of Homebuying Season: Are You Ready? – Realtor.com

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Australia’s home prices keep rising in February, defying rate hike – Reuters
• [Australia] Sydney Home Prices Flatline While Rest of Australia Stays Strong – Bloomberg
• [Australia] Desperate first home buyers are fuelling price ‘up-crash’ at lower end of market, experts say. Biggest house price increases in February come in smaller capital cities as buyers undeterred by interest rate hikes – The Guardian
• [New Zealand] New Zealand Rolls Out the Welcome Mat for Wealthy American Home Buyers. The country’s budding startup scene and changes to its Active Investor Plus visa program have led to an influx of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and advisers – Wall Street Journal
• [New Zealand] New Zealand House Prices Edge Higher, While Buyers Stay Cautious – Bloomberg

On other countries:  

• [Austria] Austria’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Canada] Toronto Home Prices Decline for a Ninth Month as Fears Persist – Bloomberg
• [Canada] Mortgage Renewal Mission Possible: The Final Reckoning – TD
• [Chile] Chile’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Finland] Finland’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Hungary] Hungary’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Indonesia] Indonesia’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Korea] Home Prices in Seoul’s Posh Districts Fall After Yearlong Rally – Bloomberg
• [Peru] Peru’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Romania] Romania’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Sweden] Sweden’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• Thailand’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices ‘bunching’ to avoid mansion tax. Buyers and sellers are already pricing homes under new thresholds – FT
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices rise in February as chancellor avoids ‘negative speculation’. Rachel Reeves’s upcoming spring forecast has not led to slowdown, as property tax rumours did in November – The Guardian
• [United Kingdom] UK mortgage approvals fall to lowest level in 2 years. Drop reflects uncertainty among homebuyers around chancellor Rachel Reeves’ November Budget – FT
• [United Kingdom] How the UK mortgage market became so unstable. The market has not been this jittery in decades — and that was before the Middle East conflict – FT
• [United Kingdom] London landlord begins evictions ahead of new renters’ rights law. Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital owns several apartment blocks in capital as well as Trocadero centre in Piccadilly – FT  

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Relief for US homeowners as mortgage rates hit lowest since 2022. Decline in benchmark rate helps bolster Donald Trump’s claim housing affordability is improving under his administration – FT
• The Disappearing American Mortgage. Young and working-class people aren’t getting on the property ladder anymore. – The Atlantic
• Price Growth for Building Materials Slows to Start the Year – NAHB
• A dangerous playbook is being revived for the giant US housing agencies. Increased buying of mortgage securities by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae marks a return to a risky business model – FT
• Did Mortgages with Locked-in Low Rates Lead to Rising House Prices? – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Asking Rents Continue to Decline Year-over-year – Calculated Risk
• House Price Appreciation by State and Metro Area: Fourth Quarter 2025 – NAHB

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• Private Residential Construction Spending Edges Higher in December – NAHB
• Final Look at Local Housing Markets in January. Altos: Active single-family inventory was down 1.4% week-over-week – Calculated Risk
• Multifamily Absorption Rate Remains Below 50% – NAHB
• US housing supply gap widens further in 2025, Realtor.com says – Reuters
• Who we count shapes how we measure housing supply and affordability – Brookings

On other developments:    

• Is the Housing Market Going to Crash? – Redfin
• Homeowners Stay Put 12 Years, Stifling the US Housing Market – Bloomberg
• Senate bill to help Americans afford housing nears the finish line. The long-awaited bipartisan legislation has White House backing and includes a measure to ban large investors from buying hundreds of homes. – Washington Post
• Mamdani Meets Again With Trump, Emerging With Two Unexpected Victories. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he and President Trump discussed building housing in New York City, and he appeared to secure the release of a Columbia student detained by ICE on Thursday. – New York Times
• A new car, home feel out of reach for middle-class Americans, poll finds. Most renters — including those earning six figures — doubt they could afford a home in the foreseeable future. – Washington Post
• Q4 Update: Delinquencies, Foreclosures and REO – Calculated Risk
• Housing has a data problem – Brookings
• The ROAD to Letting Treasury Pick Winners and Losers in Investing – Cato
• The 5 Strongest States Leading the ‘Two-Speed’ Housing Market – Realtor.com 
• Affordability Posts Mild Gains in Second Half of 2025 but Crisis Continues – NAHB

On cross-country:

• BIS residential property price statistics, Q3 2025. In the third quarter of 2025, global real house prices fell by 0.7% year on year (yoy), a rate similar to the previous quarter (–0.8%); this was despite a rise in nominal prices (2%). Real house prices in AEs were almost stable (0.3% yoy), extending the recent period of moderate growth. In EMEs, prices continued to decrease, at a slower rate (–1.5%) compared with the previous quarters. – BIS

Working papers and conferences:

• Is Housing the Business Cycle (in 2026)? – Econbrowser
• Creating high-opportunity neighbourhoods: Evidence from the HOPE VI programme – VoxEU
• Mortgage borrower actions dampen the impact of higher rates on monthly payments – VoxEU
• A Unified Urban Model With Non-Homothetic Housing Demand – NBER
• Good Neighborhoods, Good Neighbors, Good Jobs? – NBER
• Strong Spatial Spillovers Determine Neighborhood Shape and Neighborhood Change – Philadelphia Fed
• Housing Has a Data Problem. The lack of basic tools to track and understand housing has resulted in a patchwork of individual programs and little clarity on whether any of them meet basic access and affordability needs. The promise of AI, which requires structured, standardized inputs, makes addressing this data-infrastructure gap more urgent. – Project Syndicate
• Episode 65. Property Rights and the UCLA School of Economics with David Henderson – Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast Episode

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] How to tackle Sydney’s housing crisis – Grattan Institute

On other countries:  

• [Korea] Seoul Apartment Prices Gain Further Ahead of BOK Meeting – Bloomberg
• [Netherlands] Centralised planning to increase housing supply – European Commission
• [Spain] Spain’s Housing Chaos Pits Squatters Against Stranded Owners. Tens of thousands of occupied homes are for sale as Spain’s housing market reaches a boiling point. – Bloomberg

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Housing Doesn’t Need Higher Prices—It Needs More Homes – AEI
• A 25-Basis-Point Decline in the Mortgage Rate Prices-In 1.42 Million Households – NAHB
• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 1.3% year-over-year in December. FHFA House Prices up 1.8% YoY in December – Calculated Risk

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• The ripple effects of banning institutional purchases of single-family rentals – Brookings
• Warren urges Trump to press GOP on reining in Wall Street’s housing purchases. “If Trump wanted to make real changes that would lower costs for the American people, we can make that happen,” said the Massachusetts Democrat. – Politico
• Pending Home Sales Slip in January – Realtor.com
• White House Offers New Details on Its Push to Ban Housing Investors. Trump wants to prohibit investors that own more than 100 homes from buying more, potentially banning hundreds of investment firms – Wall Street Journal
• New Home Sales Close 2025 with Modest Gains – NAHB
• New-Home Sales Heat Up To End 2025, but Annual Total Falls Short of 2024 – Realtor.com
• On the Q4 Advance Release: GDP vs. “Core GDP” and Residential Investment – Econbrowser
• 1.600 million Total Housing Completions in 2025 including Manufactured Homes. Altos: Active single-family inventory was up 1.4% week-over-week – Calculated Risk
• High-End Construction Really Does Help Everyone. A new rung at the top of the housing ladder permits people lower down to climb up. – The Atlantic
• AEI State Housing Supply Legislative Update – AEI
• US single-family home price growth slows in December, FHFA says – Reuters
• Housing’s Share of GDP Declined Further at the End of 2025 – NAHB

On other developments:    

• Trump Vows To Make Housing Affordable While Keeping Values Up as He Praises the ‘Golden Age of America’ in State of the Union Speech – Realtor.com
• Trump administration moves to end housing assistance for mixed immigration families – Reuters
• It’s a Buyer’s Market, but Homeownership Eludes Many Americans. A growing split between low-to-middle-income families and wealthy households is changing who has access to homeownership now. – New York Times
• Four Years Into the High-Rate Era: How the Housing Market Changed and Why Prices Didn’t Reset – Realtor.com
• Beyond the State of the Union: Continuing a path to housing affordability – Zillow
• The Housing Market Is Tilting Back Toward Buyers. After years of bidding wars, there are now more sellers than buyers, forcing price cuts — even as high rates continue to narrow the entryway. – New York Times
• Colorado’s Distinct Trends in Affordable Housing Development. Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) are among the most common financing tools for the development of affordable housing units. Over the past 15 years, the development of LIHTC-funded housing units decelerated nationwide but accelerated in Colorado. – Kansas City Fed  

On cross-country:

• Global House Price Index Change (Q4 2025) – Global Property Guide

Working papers and conferences:

• When Houses Outrun Paychecks: The Lost Decades of Housing Affordability – St. Louis Fed
• Seminar: Nonpayment and Eviction in the Rental Housing Market- VIOS Spring 52 on April 29 – CEPR
• Urban slums: Stepping-stone for some and traps (or shields) for others – VoxEU
• Dollar funding and housing markets: the role of non-US global banks – BIS

On China:

• Chinese homebuyers are enraged by shoddy building standards. Crooked walls and broken promises are harming China’s property market – The Economist
• China housing market shows no clear turning point as price declines continue – South China Morning Post

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] We joke that to afford a home in Australia we must wait for our parents to die. It feels like a deal with the devil – The Guardian
• [Australia] Building 1.2m homes will barely put a dent in Australia’s housing affordability, one expert says. Here’s why. Thinking ‘supply is the answer’ lets politicians dodge a much more difficult conversation about tax – for investors and owners – The Guardian
• [Australia] Australia plans to sell off defence land to developers – but could it deliver homes instead? – The Conversation
• [New Zealand] New Zealand Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [New Zealand] New Zealand home prices dip in January, holiday lull hits demand – Reuters

On other countries:  

• [Canada] Canada Home Prices Slide Again as Snowstorm Chills Buying – Bloomberg
• [Canada] Canadian Home Sales — January 2026 – Scotiabank
• [Canada] Canada: Housing prices down in January – National Bank of Canada
• [Egypt] Egypt Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Ireland] Limiting short-term tourism lets won’t increase housing supply but will damage rural economies. While Airbnb-style apartments in urban areas should be restricted, regional Ireland, where tourism is the biggest employer, should be left alone – The Irish Times
• [Italy] Milan Has an Affordable Housing Crisis. Can the Olympic Village Help?The accommodation for athletes includes a video game lounge, massage room and a range of food options. Starting from September, it will house students — or at least those who can afford the rent. – New York Times
• [Romania] Romania’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [South Africa] South Africa’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [Spain] Spain Unveils Public Investment Fund To Tackle Housing Crisis – Barron’s
• [Thailand] Thailand’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2026 – Global Property Guide
• [United Kingdom] January’s Gains Endure as High Supply Tempers February U.K. House-Price Growth, Rightmove Says. Rightmove said the number of homes for sale was at an 11-year high – Wall Street Journal
• [United Kingdom] UK flat prices fall after sharp drop in London. Fall is in contrast to other property types and reflects desire for more space and reluctance to pay high service charge – FT
• [United Kingdom] UK Residential Land Prices May Have Bottomed, Knight Frank Says – Bloomberg
• [United Arab Emirates] UAE Residential Property Price Report – January 2026 – REIDIN
• [Venezuela] Los precios de las viviendas en Venezuela suben mientras venezolanos en el exterior evalúan comprar. La captura de Nicolás Maduro y las expectativas de inversión petrolera han empujado el alza de los precios. – New York Times