The Unassuming Economist

On prices, rent, and mortgage:    

• ICE Mortgage Monitor: Home Prices Continue to Cool – Calculated Risk
• Housing Finance Watch (Week 14, 2025) – AEI
• Asking Rents Mostly Unchanged Year-over-year – Calculated Risk
• Why the US mortgage market is addicted to big government. Government guarantees on securitised home loans make them generally low risk — but Trump’s policymaking raises concerns – FT
• Event: Mortgage Giants at a Crossroads: Would Re-Privatization of Freddie & Fannie Help or Hurt Housing? On April 17 – Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Refinancing Continues to Drive Mortgage Activity in March – NAHB  
• US home price insights – April 2025 – Cotality

On sales, permits, starts, and supply:    

• Housing market power shift: 7 states where buyers are gaining leverage. ResiClub analyzed end of March 2025 housing inventory data just released from Realtor.com. Here’s what it shows. – Fast Company
• March 2025 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report – Realtor.com
• Homebuilders got a bit of a break from Trump’s tariffs, but the housing market could still suffer. Even as lumber and other building materials were exempted from tariffs, market uncertainty could cause buyers and sellers to rethink their plans. – Yahoo Finance
• 58 housing markets where inventory has spiked, and homebuyers have gained power. Among the nation’s 200 largest housing markets, these 58 metro areas now have active inventory at or above 2019 pre-pandemic levels. – Fast Company
• Almost Half of the Owner-Occupied Homes Built Before 1980 – NAHB
• 1st Look at Local Housing Markets in March – Calculated Risk
• Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-April 2025 – Calculated Risk
• US houses are shrinking as inflation pushes ‘McMansions’ out of reach. Even in Texas, the American dream of home ownership is being downsized because of an affordability crisis – FT
• The Case for Single-Stair Buildings. How a Code Reform Could Make Housing More Affordable—Without Sacrificing Safety – City of Yes
• How DC densified. Washington, DC, has avoided the worst price rises that have plagued other American cities. Arlington might be the reason. – The Works in Progress Newsletter
• Remodeling Market Sentiment Down in First Quarter – NAHB

On impact of tariffs on housing:

• Trump Pauses Tariffs on Most Countries for 90 Days, Sending Stocks Soaring and Relieving Pressure on Housing Market – Realtor.com
• Trump’s Tariffs Are Expected To Raise New-Home Costs by $9,200—and These States Will Feel the Most Pain – Realtor.com
• Tarek El Moussa Says Homebuilders and First-Time Buyers Will Be Hit Hardest by Trump’s Tariffs – Realtor.com
• Trump’s Tariffs Will Affect Homebuilding—but Mortgage Rates Inch Down Another Week – Realtor.com
• Mortgage rates sink on Trump tariffs, but other costs may deter buyers – Axios
• Will tariffs affect mortgage rates? What to know about the housing market. Experts say it’s not immediately clear how President Trump’s new tariffs will affect borrowers, but building costs might rise and volatility may follow. – Washington Post
• Trump’s Trade Wars Are Having a Very Unexpected Effect on Housing. But Not Where You Think. It’s the kind of bold federal plan that progressive Americans can only dream about. – Slate
• Tariffs Threaten to Push US Home Insurance Rates Even Higher – Bloomberg
• Why China Tariffs Are Bad News for US Housing Market – Newsweek
• Warren to Mortgage Bankers Association: Trump’s Trade War is Driving Up Housing Costs Amidst Housing Affordability Crisis – US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
• What Trump’s Tariffs Mean for Mortgage Rates – Time
• What a Recession Could Mean for the Housing Market – Realtor.com

On other developments:    

• Americans Have $35 Trillion in Housing Wealth—and It’s Costing Them. Surging home equity is all the more important in a declining stock market. But it’s come with rising property taxes and higher hurdles for borrowing. – Wall Street Journal
• Housing Agency Aims to Relocate Its DC Headquarters. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development intends to leave its aging Brutalist building in Washington, DC. – Bloomberg
• Tariffs and Car Buying: The New, Unexpected Barrier to Homeownership – Realtor.com
• In 15 Years, 80,000 Homes in the New York Area May Be Lost to Flooding. The metro region’s housing shortage is acute. But by 2040, dozens of neighborhoods and suburbs are likely to have lost thousands of homes to floods, a new report found. – New York Times
• How Climate Change Could Make Homes Disappear. In the next 15 years, the New York area could lose more than 80,000 homes to floods, worsening the housing shortage, according to a new report. – New York Times
• Will the U.S. Housing Crisis Be Exploited for a Massive Public Lands Sell-Off? Some politicians are using the nation’s housing affordability problems as a pretense to sell off public lands—an extreme agenda that puts America’s treasured lands and waters at risk without substantively addressing housing needs. A new initiative from the Trump administration publicly promises restraint, while specific proposals from Capitol Hill tell a different story. – Center for American Progress

From a paper by Keyang Zhan & Zhengning Pu:

“Firms, in response to risk response, tend to avoid and transfer the risks associated with climate policy uncertainty (CPU) as much as possible, which in turn has a profound impact on household income. We use Chinese prefecture-level cities as the research sample to examine the economic impact of CPU on income inequality. We find that (1) CPU exacerbates income inequality by promoting agglomeration effect, technological bias effect, and automation effect. (2) The negative impact of CPU on income inequality is not obvious in the central region, high administrative level, high capital allocation ability, low labour allocation ability and resource-based cities. (3) Shock duration, effects (as opposed to climate physical risks), and other impacts are examined. Command-and-control environmental regulations can mitigate the potential impacts of CPU, whereas market-based environmental regulations have limited effectiveness. This study examines the potential impacts of CPU on balanced development and high-quality development, providing new insights for the formulation of climate policies and the management of policy risks associated with climate change.”

From a paper by Cephas Naanwaab:

“Recent trends in inequality have raised concerns among researchers and policymakers globally. The role of globalization, one of the leading forces driving this trend, continues to be intensely debated in academic and policy circles. Invoking standard trade theory, this paper analyses whether and the extent to which trade liberalization has contributed to the recent trends in inequality. The approach and findings of the paper are novel: previous studies of trade liberalization’s impact on inequality do not explicitly control the direction of trade. The empirical results show that trade liberalization is associated with decreasing income inequality overall, but contingent on the direction of trade, it has opposing effects: North–North and South–South trade are inequality-reducing while North–South trade is inequality-increasing. Simply put, liberalizing trade between countries of similar developmental levels does not raise inequality. This paper affirms, using recent data, that trade with developing countries raises inequality in developed countries. Additionally, it finds that North–South trade (particularly imports from high-income to low-income countries) may also raise inequality in developing countries, contrary to Heckscher–Ohlin–Stolper–Samuelson model predictions. Skill-biased technical change, a consequence of trade liberalization between North and South, is the main mechanism driving inequality increases in developing countries.”

From a paper by Jarosław Brodny, Magdalena Tutak, and Wieslaw Wes Grebski:

“One of the foremost challenges in today’s global economy is ensuring energy security for individual countries and regions. In the contemporary context, this security plays a pivotal role in ensuring sovereignty, fostering innovation, and bolstering competitiveness, particularly in knowledge-based economies. The pursuit of energy independence while mitigating adverse environmental impacts stands as a key priority in European Union policy. Efforts towards achieving a zero-carbon economy encompass all member states, including those in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This paper delves into this pressing issue by evaluating the sustainable energy security and policy efficiency of CEE countries over a 15-year period. This research employed a well-defined methodology, employing a multidimensional approach to address the complexity of the issue. The outcome of this approach was the development of the Sustainable Energy Security Index (SESI) for the countries under study, serving as a benchmark for evaluating energy security and policy effectiveness. Multiple Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods, including COPRAS, EDAS, MAIRCA, and the Hurwicz criterion, were utilized to determine the SESI value. Additionally, CRITIC, equal weights, standard deviation methods, and Laplace’s criterion were employed to ascertain the weights of the indices characterizing various dimensions of sustainable energy security. The findings reveal significant disparities in energy security and policy implementation effectiveness among CEE countries. Slovenia, Croatia, Latvia, Romania, and Hungary demonstrated notably strong performance, while Poland and Bulgaria lagged behind. These results underscore the necessity of integrating findings into the energy and climate strategies of both CEE countries and the EU-27 as a whole.”

On cross-country:

• The housing crisis deepens in developed countries. The housing crisis worsens as property prices rise and incomes stagnate, affecting affordability and economic well-being throughout developed nations. – GIS

Working papers and conferences:

• Concentration in Mortgage Markets: GSE Exposure and Risk-Taking in Uncertain Times – Philadelphia Fed
• Not all housing cycles are created equal: Macroeconomic consequences of housing booms – VoxEU
• The impact of rent controls: Lessons from Catalonia – VoxEU
• The Lock-In Effect of Rising Mortgage Rates on Housing Market Dynamics – SSRN
• Housing Policy for the New Paradigm: Lessons Learned from the World Bank Disaster Recovery Projects – SSRN

On China:

• Estate agents in China are trying everything to sell flats. You can place your deposit in bushels of wheat or strings of garlic – The Economist
• Property sales at Chinese developer Country Garden drop by over a third. Revenue slump highlights extent of real estate slowdown now in its fourth year – FT

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Housing is less affordable than ever. Of all the problems facing Australia today, few have worsened so rapidly in the past 25 years as housing affordability.  – Grattan
• [Australia] Housing dream turned nightmare weighs on Australian voters ahead of national election – Reuters
• [Australia] Australia’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Australia] Australia home prices hit new record in March after rate cut, CoreLogic data shows – Reuters
• [Australia] Australian house prices hit new peak as rate cut drives buyer demand. Tougher conditions for first home buyers – and renters, who are now often spending more than those with mortgages – The Guardian
• [Australia] Australian House Prices Reach Fresh High Ahead of May Election – Bloomberg
• [Australia] RBA Says Victoria Recorded Biggest Increase in Mortgage Arrears – Bloomberg
• [New Zealand] New Zealand Housing Market Has Entered Upturn, CoreLogic Says – Bloomberg

On other countries:  

• [Canada] Improving housing affordability in Canada takes a backseat – RBC
• [Canada] Trump is gunning for Canada—and Canadian homeowners in the U.S. want out. A property sell-off has already begun, and brokers expect it to get worse. – Fast Company
• [Canada] Canada’s housing market ‘not immune’ to trade war pain, economist says – Bloomberg
• [Canada] Toronto Home Sales Plunge as Trade War Hits Consumer Confidence – Bloomberg
• [Cambodia] Cambodia’s Residential Real Estate Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Germany] House prices in city centers fall more sharply than in other neighborhoods – KIEL
• [India] India’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Japan] Japan Residential Real Estate Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Norway] Norway Home Prices Rise at Slowest Pace Since Last July – Bloomberg
• [Pakistan] Pakistan’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Slovenia] Housing: Who can afford to rent in the Slovenian capital? – European Data Journalism Network
• [Spain] How Housing Speculation Created Environmental Crisis in Spain. The floods that hit Spain last year were more than just a natural disaster. They were exacerbated by housing developers who built homes in the most flood-prone areas. – Jacobin
• [Spain] Barcelona Becomes Ground Zero for Europe’s Housing Dilemma. The Spanish city’s woes mirror a broader affordable-housing crunch spreading rapidly across Europe and driving inequality. – New York Times
• [Spain] In Spain, a Race for the Last Golden Visas. The residency-by-investment program meant to stimulate the economy was so popular that Spain had to shut it down. – New York Times
• [Turkey] Turkey Residential Real Estate Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [United Kingdom] You can’t grow an economy by crushing aspiration. Few will weep for second-home owners paying extra council tax — but the successful know when they’re not wanted – FT
• [United Kingdom] UK Mortgage Demand Eases as Time Runs Out on Tax Break – Bloomberg