The Unassuming Economist

The IMF’s latest report on Iceland says that:

“The real estate markets have cooled. The rate of growth of housing prices fell from a peak of 24 percent y/y in July 2017 to 6 percent 12 months later, while that for commercial real estate slowed from 19 percent y/y to 15 percent. A robust supply response was key, although slowing tourism growth also helped—including by limiting private rental demand via Airbnb (see for instance Eliasson and Ragnarsson, 2018). Residential investment and commercial construction continue to expand briskly.”

 

 

Also, see a separate report on Inflation Targeting in Iceland–The Issue of Housing Costs here.

 

From the IMF’s latest report on the United Kingdom:

“Mortgage lending growth has been moderate, owing in part to subdued demand, as well as macroprudential measures taken in recent years. Despite the recent moderation in residential house price growth (and outright declines in parts of London), house prices remain high relative to incomes (…). The ratio of new mortgage loans at relatively high loan-to-income (LTI) ratios has increased somewhat in the last two years, although the share of highly indebted households remains low. Since 2014, mortgage lenders have been required to test whether borrowers could still afford their mortgages in a stressed rates scenario.”

From the IMF’s latest report on Chile:

On cross-country:

• 2018 Housing Finance in Africa Yearbook – Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa
• Pockets of risk in European Housing Markets: then and now – Central Bank of Ireland
• UN Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha on homelessness, human rights and why the lack of adequate housing is on the rise – Al Jazeera
• ULI/ PwC’s Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2019 – Urban Land Institute

On the US:

• Birth Rates and Home Values: A Closer Look – Zillow
• Affordability, Disruption & Rising Interest Rates Lead Top Ten Issues Facing Real Estate – National Association of Realtors
• US Housing: As good as it gets? – ING
• When Millennials Battle Boomers Over Housing – Citylab
• Ballots for Buildings: Voters Weigh Affordable Housing Measures – The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Are median incomes actually stagnating? How we calculate housing costs affects the answer – Urban Institute
• Amazon’s real estate team did its homework – Brookings
• How Minimum Zoning Mandates Can Improve Housing Markets and Expand Opportunity – The Aspen Institute
• Resilience and housing markets: Who is it really for? – Land Use Policy

On other countries:

• [Australia] Australia’s Property Slump Casts Doubt on Household Spending – Bloomberg
• [Australia] Significant drop in auction rates set alarm bells ringing for major Australian housing markets – Global Property Guide
• [Canada] Vancouver’s complicated relationship with Chinese money – CBC
• [China] Three New Signs China’s Housing Market Slowdown Is Taking Hold – Bloomberg
• [Denmark] Party is over for apartment owners – but the Danish housing market is picking up – Danske Bank
• [Hungary] Measuring Heterogeneity of House Price Developments in Hungary, 1990–2016 – Central Bank of Hungary

Photo by Aliis Sinisalu

From the IMF’s latest report on Canada:

“Housing market imbalances are a key source of systemic risk and can adversely affect housing affordability. This paper utilizes a stylized model of the Canadian economy that includes policymakers with differing objectives—macroeconomic stability, financial stability, and housing affordability. Not surprisingly, when faced with multiple objectives, deploying more policy instruments can lead to better outcomes. The results show that macroprudential policy can be more effective than policies based on adjusting propertytransfer taxes because property-tax policy entails excessive volatility in tax rates. They also show that if property-transfer taxes are used as a policy instrument, taxes targeted at a broader-set of homebuyers can be more effective than measures targeted at a smaller subset of homebuyers, such as nonresident homebuyers.”