The Unassuming Economist

On cross-country:

• Southern Europe’s Prime Property Prices Are Booming, Study Shows. Lisbon, Madrid, Athens home values rising more than elsewhere. Prime rental market growing rapidly, outstripping sales growth – Bloomberg

Working papers and conferences:

• Call for Papers: 16th Real Estate Markets and Capital Markets (ReCapNet) Conference KTH Stockholm 28-29 October 2024 – ReCapNet
• How the Source of Financing Discrimination Affects Housing Opportunities for FHA Buyers – SSRN
• Rent Control from Ancient Rome to Paris Commune: The Factors Behind its Introduction – SSRN
• Do Inclusionary Zoning Policies Affect Local Housing Markets? An Empirical Study in the United States – SSRN

On the US—developments on house prices, rent, permits and mortgage:    

• Who Is Driving Rental Demand? Hint: It’s Not Millennials Anymore. A recent report found that the youngest — and oldest — American adults are sustaining the demand for rental homes. – New York Times
• Memo to Biden & Harris: Rent Controls Will Make Our Housing Crisis Worse – Newsweek
• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 5.9% year-over-year in May. FHFA House Price Index Unchanged in May, up 5.7% YoY – Calculated Risk and Reuters
• Home Price Gains Moderate for Third Straight Month – NAHB
• US CoreLogic S&P Case-Shiller Index Growth Slows Again, Up 5.9% Annually in May – CoreLogic
• Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased Slightly in June; Up 5.1% Year-over-year. Over the last 3 months, the seasonal adjusted index has increased at a 0.8% annual rate – Calculated Risk
• Inflation Adjusted House Prices 1.9% Below 2022 Peak. Price-to-rent index is 7.6% below 2022 peak – Calculated Risk
• The housing market is shifting—here’s where it’s happening. These three interactive maps show where home prices are starting to show signs of softening. – Fast Company
• US Home Sales Fell in June To Slowest Pace Since December Amid Rising Mortgage Rates, Home Prices –The Associated Press – NAR
• Secret #74 – 6-Months of Inventory of Houses for Sale is a Lot More Than It Used to Be – Real Estate Decoded
• Top 10 U.S. Housing Markets with Highest Priced Homes in Q2 2024 – ATTOM
• The Week in Review. Week of July 22 – Home Sales Slump – Home Economics
• The price of housing in the US, 1890-2006. The data suggest that both owned and rental housing prices increased more over the 20th century than previously thought, and also that overall inflation over the period may have been underestimated. – VoxEU  
• High Rates Have Been Good for One Corner of the Mortgage Industry. Now What? Mortgage servicers have benefited in multiple ways from higher rates and a slow housing market – Wall Street Journal
• Sellers are ‘losing their grip’ on the housing market as home prices cool, research firm says – Business Insider
• Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey – Mortgage Bankers Association
• Approval timelines really matter for housing – Marginal Revolution
• Solution #2 – Redesign U.S. Mortgages to Maximize Home Ownership Instead of Home Sales. Not Easy But Effective – Real Estate Decoded
• 86% of Outstanding Mortgage Debt has a Sub-6% Rate – Realtor.com

On the US—other developments:    

• The Housing Market Isn’t Making Sense. What’s Going On. – Barron’s
• The Summer 2024 Wall Street Journal/Realtor.com Housing Market Ranking – Realtor.com
• How Do We Solve America’s Affordable Housing Crisis? BU Research Helps Inspire a Federal Bill That Suggests Answers. Legislation could curtail ability of strict local zoning regulations and outspoken “not in my backyard” residents to block multifamily housing – Boston University
• A starter home costs $1 million or more in 237 U.S. cities. California, New York, and New Jersey are home to the most cities where starter homes have a seven-digit price tag – Quartz
• Secret #73 – Did the Internet Make the Real Estate Market LESS Rational! – Real Estate Decoded
• America’s Top Housing Market Is in the Heartland—With Homes Below $200K in Hot Demand – Realtor.com
• Some of America’s Poorest States Have the Highest Homeownership—the Seeming Contradiction, Explained – Realtor.com
• 5 New Narratives About the Housing Market. It’s a post-post-pandemic market – The New Urban Order
• Final Look at Local Housing Markets in June and a Look Ahead to July Sales – Calculated Risk
• The Forgotten Solution to the Housing Crunch – AEI
• Secret #76 – A Huge Property Tax Loophole for Land Speculators – Real Estate Decoded
• Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Serious Delinquency Rate Mostly Unchanged in June, Multi-family Increased – Calculated Risk
• Mapped: The Fastest Growing Housing Markets in the U.S. – Visual Capitalist
• 3 Solutions – U.S. Home Ownership – Real Estate Decoded
• Homeownership Rate Remains at 65.6% in Q2 2024 – Realtor.com
• Homeownership among lowest-income households climbs near all-time high. That growth outpaces increases in homeownership among higher-income households – Philadelphia Fed
• Lowest Homeownership Rate for Younger Householders in Four Years – NAHB
• Land-Use Reforms and Housing Costs: Does Allowing for Increased Density Lead to
• Greater Affordability? – Urban Studies
• Reducing Housing Burdens While Creating a Longer-Term Affordable Housing Solution – Center for American Progress
• Solution #1 – One Tax Code for Single-Family Homes and Condos – Eliminate All Landlord-Only Tax Breaks. By Far the Easiest, Cheapest and Most Effective Solution – Real Estate Decoded
• Homeowner Equity Turns Back Upward Across U.S. in Second Quarter of 2024 as Home Values Surge – ATTOM

On China:

• China releases five-year action plan for new people-centered urbanization – The State Council

On other countries:  

• [Australia] The Sydney suburbs where house prices soared most over the past year – The Sydney Morning Herald
• [Canada] Britain is planning a housing revolution – Canada should take note – The Globe and Mail
• [Canada] Statscan study: Converting Airbnbs won’t make dent in housing crisis – The Globe and Mail
• [Canada] Short-term rentals in the Canadian housing market – Statistics Canada
• [Colombia] Colombia Residential Real Estate Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide
• [Cyprus] Cyprus’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong’s 2024 property slump feels like it’s 1997 all over again – or is it? The housing supply pipeline may grow to 112,000 homes over the next three to four years, according to the forecast by the Housing Bureau at the end of March – South China Morning Post
• [Hong Kong] Why Hong Kong’s property market isn’t all doom and gloom. Hong Kong’s real estate sector has endured a series of shocks, yet it is far more resilient than dire reports of its state might suggest – South China Morning Post
• [Hong Kong] Affordable homes will give Hong Kong youth the chance to soar, not lie flat, housing chief says. Housing secretary says boost in home ownership through increased number of affordable flats will be a significant incentive for the young – South China Morning Post 
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong Pre-Owned Property Prices Hit Eight-Year Low – Caixin
• [Hungary] Hungary’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide
• [Morocco] Morocco Residential Real Estate Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide
• [New Zealand] New Zealand Residential Real Estate Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide
• [Spain] Barcelona wants to get rid of short-term rental units. Will other tourist destinations do the same? – AP
• [United Kingdom] Britain’s property hotspots enjoying 20pc house price rises. Growing property fortunes reveal a narrowing North-South divide – The Telegraph
• [United Kingdom] UK Mortgage Approvals Steady In Sign of Stable Housing Market – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] Does Taxing Second-Home Owners Ever Make Sense? Tourist hotspots in the UK are increasingly raising council tax on non-residents. Will it help or hurt? – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices expected to rise over second half of year, says Zoopla. Larger number of homes for sale will help push up prices by 2%, says property portal – The Guardian

Working papers and conferences:

• How Should Monetary Policy Respond to Housing Inflation? – Minneapolis Fed
• What does housing collateral mean for Hong Kong economy? From the perspective of modelling and policy implication – Economic Analysis and Policy
• The Geographical Spillover Effect of a House Purchase Deregulation Policy: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in China – SSRN
• When Does Land Use Regulation Lower the Average Price of Housing in Cities? – SSRN
• Pricing for Opportunity: The Impact of Spatially Varying Rent Subsidies on Housing Voucher Neighborhoods and Take-up – SSRN
• A Structural Model of Mortgage Offset Accounts in the Australian Housing Market – SSRN

On the US—developments on house prices, rent, permits and mortgage:    

• Runaway Rents in Big American Cities. Rents are rising quickly in some big cities – Home Economics
• U.S. Home Prices Hit Record in June for Second Consecutive Month. Home sales slowed again, ending a disappointing spring selling season – Wall Street Journal
• Record house prices depress US home sales in June – Reuters
• Home Price Growth Expected to Moderate as Listings Outpace Sales. Forecast of New Home Sales Downgraded, Existing Home Sales Upgraded – Fannie Mae
• NAR Real Estate Forecast Summit – NAR
• Will home prices drop in 2024? Even as buyer demand has slowed, extremely low supply has kept home prices from falling. Prices increased a bit in 2023, and they’ll probably go up in 2024, as well. Most major forecasts predict that home prices will end 2024 between 2% and 4.8% higher than the year before. – Business Insider
• Housing market predictions 2024: What homebuyers should know. In 2024, homebuyers can expect high home prices and slightly lower mortgage rates later in the year. Hopeful buyers should start preparing as early as possible by saving money and improving their credit. Look into affordable mortgage programs and down payment assistance to boost affordability. – Business Insider  
• When Will the Housing Market Crash? Economists Don’t Foresee It in 2024. Experts overwhelmingly say that the housing market isn’t going to crash anytime soon. The last housing crash helped cause today’s lack of supply, which is what’s keeping prices from falling. Mortgage rates, however, are expected to fall this year. This will help make homeownership more affordable. – Business Insider
• NMHC: “Apartment Market Conditions Continue to Loosen”. Leading indicator for Rents and Apartment Vacancies suggests more weakness for Apartments – Calculated Risk
• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 3.89 million SAAR in June. Median House Prices Increased 4.1% Year-over-Year – Calculated Risk
• Existing Home Sales Continued to Pull Back Amid Record High Prices – NAHB
• New Home Sales Decrease to 617,000 Annual Rate in June. Median New Home Price is Down 9% from the Peak – Calculated Risk
• Profit Margins for U.S. Home Sellers Mostly Unchanged During Second Quarter Despite Renewed Price Spike – ATTOM
• There’s a shift happening in some housing markets—just look at inventory. Florida and Idaho join Texas in hitting pre-pandemic inventory milestones—and some other states aren’t too far behind. – Fast Company
• Watch Months-of-Supply! – Calculated Risk

On the US—other developments:    

• Housing and the American Worker – AEI
• Soaring Cost of Insurance and Property Tax Is the Top Risk for Triggering Mortgage Delinquencies, Survey Finds – Realtor.com
• Secret #69 – NAR Considers Landlord-Ownership to be “Home Ownership” – Real Estate Decoded
• Secret #70 – What You Can Do to Increase Home Ownership – Real Estate Decoded
• Secret #71 – Congress Almost Prevented 500,000 Foreclosures but the Financial Industry Stopped Them – Real Estate Decoded
• Secret #72 – Most Developers Today Don’t Want to Build Inexpensive Houses. They Want to Build More Profitable Houses – Real Estate Decoded
• The Cost of Luxury Homes in Every State – Yahoo Finance
• Mercatus Center Study Documents Progress on Housing Reform. Many states have enacted laws curbing exclusionary zoning and other regulations that block new housing construction. – Reason
• Lessons In Working With Institutional Real Estate Firms. Eight hard-won lessons from a decade working with 110+ of the largest global real estate owners and operators – Thesis Driven

On China:

• China’s Long Blueprint for Economy Falls Short on Details, Raising Concerns. Leadership in Beijing signals commitment to near-term growth, but leaves questions on entrenched debt and property problems – Wall Street Journal
• China Vows to Accelerate New Affordable-Housing Model. Steps up commitment to promote renting along with buying. Event also signals further loosening of home-buying measures – Bloomberg
• China’s Cement Boom Is Over. We Can All Breathe Easier. The industry’s collapse will lead to a more balanced economy, as well as a healthier planet. – Bloomberg
• China’s housing may get extra help by July’s end as policymakers strive to reverse slump. Policymakers, concerned about weak domestic demand, may ‘step up easing rhetoric and measures’ at this month’s Politburo meeting, Goldman Sachs says – South China Morning Post

On other countries:  

• [Australia] NSW to trial prefabricated ‘modular homes’ to address housing crisis. Premier Chris Minns says announcement ‘an important milestone in our work to utilise nontraditional methods of delivering more homes sooner’ – The Guardian
• [Canada] Homebuyer FOMO Starts to Pump Up Canada’s Real Estate Market. Lower rates helped spur more sales, higher prices in June. ‘When the tide turns, and it will, it will turn fast’ – Bloomberg
• [Hong Kong] Give Hong Kong private developers more incentives to join subsidised housing scheme: analysts. Experts also urge authorities to restore market confidence following failed first land bid under Private Subsidised Sale Flat Pilot Scheme – South China Morning Post
• [Jamaica] Jamaica’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide
• [Korea] Koreans Expect Hotter Housing Market in Worry for Central Bank. Bank of Korea wants to avoid rate cut sign fueling home prices. Overall consumer confidence rises and inflation outlook eases – Bloomberg
• [Panama] Panama’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide
• [Russia] How Vladimir Putin created a housing bubble. Prices have risen by 172% in Russia’s biggest cities over the past three years – The Economist
• [Singapore] Singapore to Introduce New Open-Plan Public Housing Layout – Bloomberg
• [Slovenia] Housing market challenges and policy options in Slovenia – OECD
• [Spain] The housing shortage – BBVA
• [Spain] Reasons behind the scarce supply of housing. Since 2021 housing starts have been lower than homes created. Factors that could limit housing supply include a shortage of land ready to start new developments, regulatory uncertainty and labor shortages. Measures are needed to boost residential construction and rental supply. – BBVA
• [United Kingdom] Nimby Wastelands Are Holding Britain Back. To solve its housing shortage, England needs to puts its grey and unpleasant land to use. – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] Nationwide first big lender to offer sub-4% mortgage deal in months. Rate will only be available to buyers and not customers switching home loan products – FT
• [United Kingdom] Fixed-rate mortgages below 4% back on sale in UK. Brokers hope Nationwide’s mortgage deal is sign of ‘summer of savings’ for homebuyers – The Guardian
• [Vietnam] Vietnam’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide

Links to the week’s top housing market stories.

Cross Country

• Steady Rise In House Prices Points To Growth In Confidence – Forbes
• The UK’s Broken Housing Market – Policy Exchange
• Slash stamp duty for pensioners to boost housing market, Reeves urged – The Telegraph
• Rising House Sale Prices in Greece Outpace Most of Europe, Eurostat Reports – Greek City Times
• China new home prices fall at fastest pace in 9 years, more support needed – Reuters
• China June new house prices -4.5% y/y (prior -3.9%) – Forexlive

US

• The Best Plan for Housing Is to Plan Less – New York Times
• Part 2: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-July 2024 – CalculatedRisk
• 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in June – CalculatedRisk
• Gentrification as a housing problem – Works in Progress
• Are YIMBYs Wrong about the Housing Crisis? – Aziz Sunderji
• Household Wealth Gains Are a Tailwind to Consumer Spending – Apollo.com
• Secret #66 – The Housing Wealth Effect is a Double-Edged, Lopsided Sword – John Wake
• Housing Finance Watch (Weeks 27 & 28, 2024) – American Enterprise Institute
• REMODELING SPENDING TO TICK UP THROUGH MID-YEAR 2025 – Harvard JCHS
• Here’s why international buyers are pulling way back from the U.S. housing market – CNBC
• US housing market is turning more buyer-friendly – Yahoo Finance

A list of papers that study the economic effects of rent control

1. Housing market spillovers: Evidence from the end of rent control in Cambridge, Massachusetts – Autor, Palmer, and Pathak (2014)
2. The effects of rent control expansion on tenants, landlords, and inequality: Evidence from San Francisco – Diamond, McQuade, and Qian (2018)
3. Robbing Peter to pay Paul? The redistribution of wealth caused by rent control – Ahern and Giacoletti (2022)
4. Rent control effects through the lens of empirical research: An almost complete review of the literature – Kholodilin (2024)

Links to the week’s top housing market stories.

Cross Country

• Canada’s Housing Market Starts to Strengthen After Rate Cut – Bloomberg
• Canada real estate: Home prices continue to rise despite slumping sales, says Royal LePage – Yahoo Finance
• Are We in a Housing Bubble in 2024? – Norada Real Estate Investments
• The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Europe: Biggest Price Drops in Germany, Finland, Sweden, Austria, France, Denmark – Wolf Street
• Vietnam’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2024 – Global Property Guide

US

• Better news on housing construction plus a methodological improvement pushes up the forecast – The Nowcast (and other thoughts on the economy)
• A Discussion of the Housing Market with Lance Lambert (ResiClub) – CalculatedRisk Newsletter
• Home Insurance Rates in America Are Wildly Distorted. Here’s Why – New York Times
• NAHB Urges Congress to Address Housing Affordability Crisis – NAHB
• Rate cuts won’t fix housing affordability, economist says – Yahoo Finance
• Florida is bucking the national housing trend, real estate firm says – Fox Business
• America’s most livable small cities revealed, with locals loving their reasonable housing costs, plentiful jobs and great amenities – Daily Mail
• Could policies solve US housing affordability crisis? – MPA Mag