The Unassuming Economist

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Rent Control: A Proven Way to Make Housing Scarce and Expensive – AEI
• Where Are Mortgage Delinquencies Rising the Most? – New York Fed
• Where mortgage rates are headed in 2026, according to 21 experts. Among the 21 mortgage rate forecasts tracked by ResiClub, the average prediction is 6.18% for calendar year 2026. – Forbes
• Revitalizing Bank Mortgage Lending, One Step with Basel – FED
• Federal Reserve Wants To Loosen Bank Rules To Boost Mortgage Lending – Realtor.com
• The Federal Reserve Wants to Change How You Shop for a Mortgage. Proposal aims to get banks back in the market by easing requirements – Wall Street Journal
• A new mortgage crisis is quietly hitting those who can least afford it. This week, there was yet another warning that many homeowners might be headed for trouble. – Washington Post
• Washington Inflates Credit Scores and Another Housing Bubble. Why is the Trump administration continuing the Biden push for ‘inclusive’ credit scores? – Wall Street Journal
• January 2026 Rental Report: Renter Conditions Improve Across U.S. Markets, With Notable Increases in Vacancies – Realtor.com
• States Hold the Keys to Greater Mortgage Access for Manufactured Home Buyers. Updates to real estate titling laws could reduce costs and complexities for borrowers – Pew
• Mamdani Fills Out Housing Board in Push to Freeze Rent. Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed six members to the Rent Guidelines Board, which decides whether rents can go up in nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments. – New York Times

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• Residential Building Worker Wages Slow in 2025 Amid Cooling Housing Activity – NAHB
• Home Sales in January Posted Biggest Monthly Decline in Nearly Four Years. Freezing temperatures and high home prices snuffed out the sales momentum from previous months – Wall Street Journal
• US existing home sales drop to more than two-year low in January – Reuters
• January 2026 Hottest Housing Markets – Realtor.com
• Congressional housing deal faces new hurdle as Trump pushes investor ban. The issue is another area in which the president’s populist ideas are clashing with GOP free-market orthodoxy. – Politico
• Yes, Housing Supply Will Help, But It’s Not Everything – Forbes
• Cost of Credit for Builders & Developers at Its Lowest Since 2022 – NAHB
• The housing market is not getting much better. And neither is inflation – FT
• Builder Sentiment Edges Lower on Affordability Concerns – NAHB
• Part 2: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-February 2026 – Calculated Risk
• Housing Starts Increased to 1.404 million Annual Rate in December – Calculated Risk
• Land Grab for Data Centers Is One More Obstacle to Much-Needed Housing. Resistance grows to more land sales in Northern Virginia; ‘They’d rather have homes than data’ – Wall Street Journal
• US homebuilder sentiment remains subdued amid affordability challenges – Reuters
• Overall Housing Starts Inch Lower in 2025 – NAHB
• US single-family housing starts rebound in January, building permits decline – Reuters

On other developments:    

• A Simple Test of What People Really Think About Immigration. If you want to see whether immigration is making cities better or worse, just look at property values. – Marginal Revolution
• The decline of single-earner housebuyers in America. A tale of opportunities and costs – The Economist
• How Congress Plans to Take On the Housing Crisis. Modular housing, easier access to home loans are among proposals lawmakers are working on – Wall Street Journal
• A new bill aims to make homes affordable again. Here’s how. The House has passed the Housing for the 21st Century Act. Here’s how experts say it will make it easier (and cheaper) to buy affordable homes – Quartz
• Congress just passed a major housing bill. Will it actually lower your home price? The House passed a wide-ranging housing bill with bipartisan support, aiming to cut costs by streamlining zoning, financing, and federal programs. – Fast Company
• The ‘New Housing Crisis’ Isn’t New. What It Means If You’re Buying or Selling. – Barron’s  
• A ground-floor Costco is proving what’s broken in housing. Thrive Living’s partnership with Costco is the exception that proves the rule about what’s broken in housing. – Washington Post
• How Rising Costs Affect Home Affordability – NAHB
• How Housing Affordability Conditions Vary Across States and Metro Areas – NAHB
• 64% of Single Americans Struggle to Afford Housing, Compared With 39% of Married People – Redfin
• America’s Affordability Crisis Is a Housing Shortage. We Can Fix It in Three Steps – AEI
• Three’s a Crowd. With housing costs at an all-time high, more couples are living with roommates to manage the load. – New York Times
• The affordability crisis is driving unprecedented price cuts in the housing market, Realtor.com says – Fortune
• Disney-Led Theme Park Expansions Reshape Housing Markets – Realtor.com
• Homebuyer Down Payments Shrink for First Time in 5 Months – Redfin
• More States Requiring Landlords to Disclose Flood Risk, but Laws Vary Nationwide – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies

On cross-country:

• 68% of people living in EU households own their home – Eurostat
• MEPs adopt proposals to tackle Europe’s housing crisis – European Parliament
• There are reasons why housing has become the top concern among European citizens. This analysis examines the recent evolution of the European residential market and explores differences between countries in a context where housing has become the main concern among Europeans. What we see is a cycle marked by successive shocks and an insufficient supply, which is now emerging as the main source of tension. – CaixaBank

Working papers and conferences:

• Housing policy, inflation, and monetary policy. An unorthodox view – Brookings
• Understanding CPI shelter inflation: The importance of the new-tenant/all-tenant rent gap – Journal of Housing Economics
• Residential Segregation and Unequal Access to Local Public Services in India: Evidence from 1.5m Neighborhoods – NBER
• Call for Papers: 6th Workshop on Rent Control on June 22-23 – DIW Berlin

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Australia’s Rental Affordability Hits Record Low, Property Consultancy Cotality Says – Bloomberg
• [Australia] Will the government finally deliver a housing policy that stops making a bad situation worse? The 5% deposit guarantee has done what everyone expected to housing affordability. But fixing the capital gains tax discount would be a great move – The Guardian

On other countries:  

• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong reserves 4,000 homes for tenants hit by subdivided flats overhaul – South China Morning Post
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices rise by most since November 2024, Halifax says – Reuters
• [United Kingdom] Residential Research Update – February 2026 – Savills
• [United Kingdom] UK first-time buyers too pessimistic about securing a property, study says. Building Societies Association finds many are gloomy about their prospects of financing a purchase – FT 

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Sunderji’s Paradox. Why rising incomes never seem to make rent more affordable – Home Economics
• The Condo Crisis. Prices are falling in most major metros – Home Economics
• Hartford tops Zillow’s forecast for hottest housing markets in 2026. Tight inventory is expected to define the most competitive markets in the year ahead. – Zillow
• Homes are on track to be affordable in 20 major US markets by year’s end. After years of strain, buyers should see small affordability wins this year – Zillow
• Inflation Outlook: It Is Not All About Housing – Apollo
• The Housing Markets Seeing the Sharpest Home Price Declines – Realtor.com
• February ICE Mortgage Monitor: “Home price growth slowed to its weakest pace in more than a decade”. Several Southern markets now have 10%+ mortgaged homes underwater – Calculated Risk
• Weaker Demand, Unchanged Lending Conditions for Residential Mortgages in Fourth Quarter – NAHB
• Trump wants lower mortgage rates. His Fed pick may push the other way. Kevin Warsh has long criticized the Fed’s $6.6 trillion balance sheet, arguing it distorts markets. Shrinking it could put upward pressure on mortgage rates. – Washington Post
• Where Are Mortgage Delinquencies Rising the Most? – New York Fed

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• The Size of the Housing Shortage: 2024 Data – NAHB
• The Sun Belt goes Vertical. A million new apartments, but still behind where coastal cities started. – Home Economics
• 2026 Housing Market Mood: Buyers Are Cautious, Sellers Are Showing Up, and Agents See Signs of Busier Spring Ahead – Redfin
• 1st Look at Local Housing Markets in January – Calculated Risk
• Why Building Alone Won’t Solve the Housing Crisis. An imbalance in the kind of housing getting built and rising insurance costs are impeding housing progress, according to two new reports. – New York Times
• Developers are converting empty office buildings to keep up with demand for housing – NPR
• How Hosting the Super Bowl Signals a San Francisco Real Estate Renaissance – Realtor.com 
• Proposed Ban on Investors in the Housing Market Hits a Wall in Congress. White House is pressuring GOP in Congress to add an investor ban to existing housing bills, but lawmakers have pushed back – Wall Street Journal
• Foreclosure Activity Rises Annually for the Eleventh Straight Month, Extending the Trend into 2026 – ATTOM
• 2nd Look at Local Housing Markets in January – Calculated Risk

On other developments:    

• House Passes Major Housing Bill Aimed at Home Affordability and To Speed Up Construction – Realtor.com
• What Is the Housing for the 21st Century Act? – Realtor.com
• On housing, Trump’s problem isn’t willpower. It’s time. Some White House allies acknowledge what they face in the coming months is less a policy fight than a messaging battle on housing. – Politico
• Will Trump’s Order on Housing Help? – New York Times
• The Right Fix for Affordable Housing Finally Hit Congress – Bloomberg  
• California’s blockbuster housing legislation faces rocky rollout. State Sen. Scott Wiener, the author of Senate Bill 79, has not ruled out postponing the July 1 implementation date for the new law because of widespread confusion over what it requires. – Politico
• Unaffordable Housing Impacts How Americans Consume, Work and Invest. As housing prices climb out of reach, discouraged Americans may be reaching for crypto and other risky investments. – Bloomberg
• Maybe America Needs Some New Cities. It sounds a bit kooky to promise a whole city from scratch. But it has been done before — and might just help solve the housing crisis. – New York Times
• Two Decades of Zillow Data Show How the U.S. Housing Market Has Changed Since 2006. How shifting prices, rising housing wealth and a deepening supply gap have reshaped housing over the past 20 years – Zillow
• Homebuyers Are Gaining Leverage as Housing Market Cools—Giving Them More Time To Purchase – Realtor.com
• Is there an affordability crisis? – EconoFact Chats
• Trump housing policy is a mess and it won’t fix the US housing crisis. Deregulation alone can’t make homes affordable when rising inequality, not zoning, is what is driving prices up – The Guardian
• Is the Starter Home Making a Comeback? – Realtor.com
• Hearing on “Homeownership and the Role of the Secondary Mortgage Market”. History has proven that financial markets will provide funds for housing without the federal government socializing investors’ losses. – Cato

On cross-country:

• Housing Europe President: the answer to a structural crisis caused by a market failure cannot be entrusted to the market itself. At the start of 2026, a year crucial for housing policy, Housing Europe’s President, Marco Corradi shares his thoughts on how we can guide Europe home. – Housing Europe
• Many Victorian cities grew by tenfold in a century. Could ours do the same? – The Works in Progress Newsletter

Working papers and conferences:

• Seminar: Competitive Human Capital Investment: Evidence from Housing Prices and Educational Expenditures on February 20 – Stanford University
• 5th Workshop on Residential Housing: Research Frontiers in Climate Risks and Affordability – University of Cambridge
• Creating High-Opportunity Neighborhoods: Evidence from the HOPE VI Program – NBER
• The Macroeconomic Effects of Neighborhood Policies: a Dynamic Analysis – NBER
• Housing Affordability and Housing Demand – San Francisco Fed

On China:

• China’s measures to shore up its indebted property sector – Reuters

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Australia spends more on tax breaks for landlords than social housing, homelessness and rent assistance combined – The Guardian
• [New Zealand] New Zealand house prices hit 30-month low as buyers hold back – Bloomberg

On other countries:  

• [Canada] The numbers don’t lie: The housing crisis is not caused by a supply shortage. Financialization, not demographics, caused the cost of housing to explode – Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong’s Housing Market Rebounds With Renewed City Buzz – Bloomberg
• [Korea] Apartment Prices Have Risen Every Single Week for a Year in Seoul. Seoul’s real estate rally is frustrating young workers who see the bottom rung of the property ladder float out of reach. – Bloomberg
• [Korea] Seoul Apartment Prices Rise Further Even as Lee Hardens Resolve – Bloomberg
• [Portugal] Brussels admits that Portugal is “one of the countries most affected” by the housing crisis in the EU. Brussels estimates that housing prices in Portugal are overvalued by 25%, the highest percentage in the European Union – ENR
• [Sweden] Erik Thedéen: Weak consumption and the housing market – causes and lessons learnt – Sveriges Riksbank
• [United Kingdom] London’s high land prices need ‘market adjustment’, says housing minister. Matthew Pennycook says far-reaching reform is needed to ‘get more volume out of the system’ and deliver more homes – FT
• [United Kingdom] Leaseholds and fleeceholds are a blot on the UK housing market. If more homes are to be built, the problem of rogue estate management companies has to be addressed – FT
• [United Kingdom] UK House Prices Rebound at Start of 2026, Nationwide Says – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] Santander launches 98% mortgage for first-time buyers. Move by one of the biggest UK lenders broadens options available to low-deposit borrowers – FT
• [United Kingdom] Who killed the British flat? The government needs to revive the appeal of flats — but capping ground rents at £250 a year won’t cut it – FT
• [United Kingdom] Demand for UK rental properties drops as buying becomes more affordable. Falling levels of immigration also reduce competition among tenants – FT

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• Trump’s Pick for Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Has an Unusual Plan To Lower Mortgage Rates – Realtor.com
• Mortgages won’t fix what ails housing. Economists keep repeating a message that nobody seems to want to hear: Financing gimmicks can’t solve a problem that’s fundamentally about math – Quartz
• Homeowners Are Falling Behind on Their Mortgages – Realtor.com
• Mortgage Applications Today: Demand Drops Again as Experts Blame Decline on Historic Winter Storms – Realtor.com
• Home Prices Five Years After Covid. Synchronicity and idiosyncrasy – Home Economics
• Trump: ‘I Want To Drive Housing Prices Up’. The president says he would rather increase prices for homeowners than drive prices down. – Reason
• Asking Rents Decline Year-over-year – Calculated Risk  

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• Why Trump’s crackdown on big investors in housing may backfire. Curbing institutional ownership of single-family homes does not tackle the affordability crisis and could make things worse – FT
• The Housing Market Is Slumping—but Sales Over $10 Million Are Skyrocketing. The broader real-estate market has struggled under the weight of higher mortgage rates. Meanwhile, the high end is surging. – Wall Street Journal
• The Housing Market Is Swinging Toward Buyers. Nearly two-thirds of home buyers last year purchased at a discount to the original listing price, the highest proportion since 2019 – Wall Street Journal
• U.S. Population Growth Slows in 2025 – NAHB
• Will expanding the capital gains exclusion unlock housing supply? Evidence on who benefits – Brookings 
• Final Look at Housing Markets in December and a Look Ahead to January Sales. Altos: Active single-family inventory was down 0.2% week-over-week – Calculated Risk
• Atlanta City Limits. What’s preventing the metro from growing? – Home Economics
• Homeowners Are Holding on to Their Homes Longer Than Ever—Especially in Coastal States – Realtor.com  
• Home Builders Turn to White House for Help on Inventory Glut. Companies devising a plan for a federally backed ‘rent-to-own’ program to help reduce the biggest surplus of homes in many years – Wall Street Journal
• Fannie Mae Expands U.S. Rental Housing Supply Through Nearly $74 Billion in Multifamily Loan Production Volume in 2025 – Fannie Mae
• Why Trump’s crackdown on big investors in housing may backfire. Curbing institutional ownership of single-family homes does not tackle the affordability crisis and could make things worse – FT
• Are YIMBYs winning the housing wars? Not so fast, these people say. Supply skeptics contend housing affordability calls for government policies, not just market forces. – Washington Post

On other developments:    

• What Tearing Down Housing Projects Did for Kids. Bringing rich and poor together has major benefits. – The Atlantic
• Knocking down social housing helped poor children prosper. New research shows the impact of mixed-income developments – The Economist
• New research examines long-term effects of federal housing program from the ’90s – NPR   
• Housing (Un)affordability: New Reports Shed New Light on the Problem. I’m especially convinced that with better policy, we could improve our uniquely dismal construction productivity. – Jared Bernstein
• Trump’s Plan to Make Housing Affordable Is Faltering – Bloomberg
• Trump can still do more to address affordability. Tax cuts and deregulation will fuel growth and help lower home prices. – Washington Post
• Voters Say Housing Prices Are Too High. Trump Wants Them Higher. When President Trump said he wanted to drive housing prices up, not down, he was speaking to a conundrum that has flummoxed policymakers for decades. – New York Times
• Congress Targets Housing Crisis as Solutions Elude Trump. Bipartisan Senate and House packages, aimed at rewarding new construction and eliminating red tape, could bring significant changes to federal housing laws. – New York Times
• House Republicans eye next week for housing bill vote. The Housing for the 21st Century Act is part of a push by Congress to pass legislation that could address a growing housing affordability crisis. – Politico
• The contradictions of the housing affordability dilemma – Axios
• Why nobody really knows the scale of the U.S. housing crisis. Experts say the U.S. needs an additional 2 million to 20 million homes to fix the shortfall, underscoring the challenge of meeting the nation’s housing needs. – Washington Post
• Do More Deportations Mean Lower Housing Costs? The Trump administration says its crackdown on immigration is reducing housing prices. Economists say other factors such as oversupply matter more. – Wall Street Journal
• Bridging Rent and Ownership: Can the “Trump Homes” Proposal Fix America’s Housing Shortage? – The People’s Economist with Anthony Chan
• Affordable Housing Starts in the Labor Market – Bloomberg
• The hidden double standards driving our housing crisis. Apartments are safer and more affordable than single-family homes. Why do we treat them like a hazard? – Vox
• Housing Unaffordability Soared to New Highs in 2024 – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Delinquency Rate Increased in December. Fannie Mae Multi-Family Delinquency Rate Near Housing Bust High – Calculated Risk
• Democrats knock Trump’s pledge to ‘drive housing prices up’ – The Hill
•  AI is Powering a Silicon Valley Housing Rebound. The areas gaining fastest are the ones where tech workers live – Home Economics
• U.S. Homeowner Equity Eases Slightly in Q4 2025 While Seriously Underwater Rates Stay Near Historic Lows – ATTOM
• Home Price Growth in Opportunity Zones Slightly Behind Rest of Nation in Second Quarter – ATTOM
• Homeownership Rate Inches Up to 65.7% – NAHB
• Black Gen Zers and Millennials Are Half As Likely to Own Their Home As White Counterparts – Redfin  
• The Millennial Homeownership Problem Is Mostly a Marriage Problem. Married Millennials who head their own households own at nearly the same rate as Boomers. There are just far fewer of them. – Home Economics