The Unassuming Economist

Working papers and conferences:

• Affordable housing, unaffordable credit? Concentration and high-cost lending for manufactured homes – CEPR
• Housing and fertility – VoxEU
• Coverage Neglect in Homeowner’s Insurance – Philadelphia Fed
• What Drives the Capitalization of Energy Efficiency into House Prices?  Evidence from Italy – SSRN

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

• National Housing Survey. Consumer Housing Sentiment Down Year over Year for First Time Since 2023 – Fannie Mae
• 1st Look at Local Housing Markets in February – Calculated Risk
• 2nd Look at Local Housing Markets in February – Calculated Risk
• Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2025 – Calculated Risk
• Part 2: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2025 – Calculated Risk
• 50 tightest housing markets where sellers will have the most power this spring. Among the nation’s 200 largest housing markets, 50 markets at the end of February 2025 still had at least 46% less-active inventory than in February 2019. – Fast Company
• These Unpopular Mortgages May Be the Key to Affordable Housing. Adjustable rate mortgages, which fell out of favor during the financial crisis, may well be ready for a comeback. – Bloomberg
• Refinancing Drives Mortgage Activity Higher in February – NAHB
• Pending Home Sales Are Down 6%, But Falling Mortgage Rates Are Starting to Attract Buyers – Redfin
• Buyers Have More Homes To Choose From as Mortgage Rates Drop—While Jobs Report Shows Unemployment Ticking Higher – Realtor.com
• Government Mortgage Relief Is No ‘Cash Cow’. The Mortgage Bankers Association replies to Allysia Finley. – Wall Street Journal
• Asking Rents Mostly Unchanged Year-over-year – Calculated Risk
• How Chicago plans to help its most rent-burdened residents – Axios
• 44 housing markets where inventory has spiked, and homebuyers have gained power. Among the nation’s 200 largest housing markets, these 44 metro areas now have active inventory at or above 2019 pre-pandemic levels. – Fast Company
• Housing Supply Gap Reaches Nearly 4 Million in 2024 – Realtor.com
• It Will Take 7 Years To Fix the Housing Shortage at Current Construction Pace, Economists Say – Realtor.com
• The Impact of Opportunity Zones on Housing Supply – Economic Innovation Group
• Year-over-Year Declines for Construction Job Openings – NAHB
• Builders’ Profit Margins Improved in 2023 – NAHB
• ATTOM Ranks Best Counties for Buying Single-Family Rentals in 2025 – ATTOM

On the US—other developments:    

• Deporting Undocumented Workers Will Make Housing More Expensive. The effect will be most pronounced in Texas and California – Home Economics
• US Homebuyers Confront a New Wild Card This Year: Trump. High rates, high prices and the uncertainty of the White House’s policies are looming over the housing market during the most competitive time of year. – Bloomberg
• J.D. Vance Blames Zoning, Immigrants for High Housing Costs. Plus: Texas and Minnesota consider an aggressive suite of housing supply bills, while San Diego tries to ratchet up regulations on ADUs. – Reason
• Trump administration throws hundreds of affordable housing projects into limbo after contract cuts – AP
• How Rising Costs Affect Home Affordability – NAHB
• Why housing affordability keeps getting worse – Axios
• How federal lands can be used to ease the housing crisis – The Hill
• Abundant Housing Is the Texas Miracle Worker. The State Senate’s Plan to Tackle Affordability – City of Yes
• Buying a Home? Without the Consumer Bureau, You Need to Be Your Own Watchdog. The C.F.P.B. had kept a close eye on mortgage lenders. But with the bureau hobbled, consumers should take several steps, starting with shopping for the best mortgage rates. – New York Times
• What’s Driving the Increasing Importance Consumers Place on Their Homes – Fannie Mae
• What Do We Buy Into When We Buy a Home? Homeownership, long a cherished American ideal, has become the subject of black comedies, midlife-crisis novels, and unintentionally dystopic reality TV. – New Yorker
• How the pandemic transformed the housing market in 5 years – Axios  
• Homes with Extreme Climate Risk Face Slower Sales, Bigger Discounts. Zillow research shows homes with extreme risk of flood and fire have a lower probability of being sold and a lower sales price compared to initial list price. – Zillow
• Urbanism with Chinese characteristics. Plus: Reducing the motherhood penalty by extending fertility, the steam networks of New York City, and the rise and fall of the Hanseatic league. – Work in Progress

On China:

• China’s property sector is showing positive changes, minister says – Reuters

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [New Zealand] New Zealand Home Building Declines For Ninth Straight Quarter – Bloomberg
• [New Zealand] What will happen to house prices this year? Major bank changes its mind – RNZ
• [New Zealand] What will happen to house prices this year? Major bank changes its mind – RNZ

On other countries:  

• [Canada] Builders blindsided by CMHC move to block popular mortgage scheme –The Globe and Mail
• [Canada] Mortgage broker sees Ontario home prices ‘grinding down’ amid trade war – Bloomberg
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong to press on with selling residential plots amid warnings of oversupply. Development minister Bernadette Linn also says government will not give up on project to build artificial islands in waters off Lantau – South China Morning Post
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong urged to review public housing income threshold due to new minimum wage. If Housing Authority proposal on income levels is adopted, two-person household working 10 hours a day for 26 days per month at minimum wage will fail to qualify – South China Morning Post
• [Saudi Arabia] Saudi residential real estate to attract $1.22 billion this year, consultancy says – Reuters
• [Spain] Vivienda escasa, precios de burbuja. El coste de las casas subió el año pasado a un ritmo que no se veía desde 2007, algo inasumible para miles de ciudadanos – El Pais
• [United Arab Emirates] Dubai’s property market is thriving — and its neighbours are taking notes. Price rises of 147 per cent in five years, soaring skylines and a rush of new residents are an inspiration to some, a cautionary tale to others – FT
• [United Kingdom] Stamp duty deadline and economic gloom dampen UK housing market. Buyer demand fell to lowest level since November 2023 in February, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says – The Guardian
• [United Kingdom] UK housing market has weakest month since late 2023, RICS survey shows – Reuters

From a paper by João Tovar Jalles, and André Teixeira:

“This paper explores the impact of fiscal consolidations on banking behavior, focusing on efficiency and stability. Using a panel dataset covering 194 countries from 1989 to 2020 and employing local projection methods, we find that fiscal consolidations improve bank stability at the expense of efficiency. The decline in efficiency is attributed to reduced operational income, while stability gains stem from improved asset quality and bolstered capital adequacy. The effects are heterogeneous: consolidations have a more substantial negative impact on efficiency in advanced economies, while stability improvements are more pronounced in emerging markets. The size and composition of fiscal adjustments also matter: tax-based consolidations favor stability more than expenditure-based ones. Robustness checks with alternative definitions of fiscal consolidations and non-linear models confirm these findings. The findings emphasize the importance of tailoring fiscal consolidations to country-specific factors to balance stability and efficiency in the banking sector.”

From a paper by Yoosoon Chang, Soyoung Kim, and Joon Y. Park:

“This paper investigates the interactions between macroeconomic aggregates and income distribution
by developing a structural VAR model with functional variables. With this novel empirical approach, we are able to identify and analyze the effects of various shocks to the income distribution on macro aggregates, as well as the effects of macroeconomic shocks on the income distribution. Our main findings are as follows: First, contractionary monetary policy shocks reduce income inequality when focusing solely on the redistributive effects, without considering the negative impact on aggregate income levels. This improvement is achieved by reducing the number of low and high-income families while increasing the proportion of middle-income families. However, when the aggregate income shift is also taken into account, contractionary monetary policy shocks worsen income inequality. Second, shocks to the income distribution have a substantial effect on output fluctuations. For example, income distribution shocks identified to maximize future output levels have a significant and persistent positive effect on output, contributing up to 30% at long horizons and over 50% for the lowest income percentiles. However, alternative income distribution shocks identified to minimize the future Gini index do not have any significant negative effects on output. This finding, combined with the positive effect of output-maximizing income distribution shocks on equality, suggests that properly designed redistributive policies are not subject to the often-claimed trade-off between growth and equality. Moreover, variations in income distribution are primarily explained by shocks to the income distribution itself, rather than by aggregate shocks, including monetary shocks. This highlights the need for redistributive policies to substantially alter the income distribution and reduce inequality.”

From a paper by Puneet Vatsa:

“I use a structural vector autoregression model to analyse the links between oil prices, petrol prices, inflation, inflation perceptions, and inflation expectations in New Zealand. Findings reveal that although inflation expectations are sensitive to shocks to oil prices, petrol prices, and inflation itself, they are considerably more sensitive to inflation perception shocks. Shocks to inflation perceptions explain 54% of the forecast error variance in inflation expectations after one quarter and 37% after 18 months. The results underscore the importance of including inflation perceptions in models seeking to account for inflation expectations and their associations with energy prices.”

On cross-country:

• Global real house prices decline. Global house prices declined by 1.6% year on year in real terms during the third quarter of 2024. – BIS
• Global Residential Market Report Q3 2024 – Global Property Guide
• Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics 2025. Planning for Urban Expansion – OECD
• Event: Knowledge Partner Session – Tackling Opacity in Real Estate Ownership: New Evidence and Solutions. Presented by Transparency International on March 26 – OECD
• What makes a housing boom? My 7 indicators that could help you pick a winner – Matusik Missive

Working papers and conferences:

• Not all Housing Cycles are Created Equal: Macroeconomic Consequences of Housing Booms – IMF
• How tightening mortgage credit raises rents and increases inequality in the housing market – VoxEU
• Some further thoughts on housing – Econlib
• Low-Tier Housing is a good investment, especially for homeowners. – Erdmann Housing Tracker
• Impact of Institutional Owners on Housing Markets – SSRN
• Financial Technology and the 1990s Housing Boom – SSRN
• Knocking it Down and Mixing it Up: The Impact of Public Housing Regenerations – SSRN

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

• Housing market map: How much home insurance is expected to rise by 2055. Home insurance premiums are projected to rise by 634% in Orleans Parish and 590% in Miami-Dade County between 2025 and 2055. – Fast Company
• Are Homes Values About to Fall? It Depends on the Location. The supply of houses for sale is recovering much faster in some parts of the country than in others – Wall Street Journal
• Inflation Adjusted House Prices 1.0% Below 2022 Peak. Price-to-rent index is 7.7% below 2022 peak – Calculated Risk
• Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased in January; Up 3.9% Year-over-year. 6 of the 10 cities with largest price declines are in Florida! – Calculated Risk
• US Home Price Insights –  March 2025 – CoreLogic
• House Price Appreciation by State and Metro Area: Fourth Quarter 2024 – NAHB
• Mortgage Rates Ease Slightly in February Amid Economic Uncertainty – NAHB
• US pending home sales tumble to record low in January – Reuters
• January 2025 Regional New Home Sales and Inventory – Erdmann Housing Tracker
• Final Look at Local Housing Markets in January and a Look Ahead to February Sales – Calculated Risk
• Americans delay home improvements in latest blow to US housing market. High interest rates and uncertainty over immigration policy discourage homeowners from selling or renovating properties – FT
• Multifamily Completions Rise Again Pushing Absorption Rates Lower – NAHB
• January Private Residential Construction Spending Dips – NAHB
• Housing market watch: States where housing inventory just spiked. ResiClub analyzed the February 2025 housing inventory data just released from Realtor.com. Here’s what it shows. – Fast Company
• HBGI Q4 2024: Single-Family Construction Ends Year with Growth – NAHB
• Are ICE raids impacting the housing market? Here’s what homebuilders say. Just 11% of homebuilders surveyed say that recent deportations and changes in immigration policy have impacted their labor force so far. – Fast Company
• 42% More Supply than Last Year! – Arizona Real Estate Notebook
• Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Serious Delinquency Rates Increased in January. Fannie Mae Multi-Family Delinquency Rate Highest Since 2011 (ex-Pandemic) – Calculated Risk
• California, Illinois, Florida and New York City Area Lead Housing Markets Facing Greater Risk of Downturns – ATTOM
• Revealed: America’s Hottest Housing Markets—and Why Some Buyers Are Happily Paying Over Asking in These Popular Spots – Realtor.com 

On the US—other developments:    

• During The Pandemic, Relatively Fewer Land-Use Restrictions In Some Markets Created Pockets of Housing Affordability – Zillow
• Learning from the first (and only) manufactured housing boom. Economist James Schmitz Jr. sees factory-made homes as the only substantial way to supply more affordable housing – Minneapolis Fed
• Cracking the Code. One man’s quest to fix the way we build. – Slate
• The War on HUD Will Make Housing Even Less Affordable. Americans are irate about high rents as well as sprawling homeless encampments. Slashing the housing agency won’t help any of it. – Bloomberg
• Homebuilders Warn of Rising Building Costs as Trump’s Tariffs on Canada and Mexico Take Effect – Realtor.com
• How Trump’s Policies Could Make the Housing Market Even More Unaffordable. Tariffs and worker deportations threaten to make home prices more expensive, pushing homeownership out of reach for millions. – Barron’s
• US housing to get a bit more affordable this year, but mainly due to lower rates: Reuters Poll – Reuters  
• Event: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities in the Secondary Market for Multifamily Affordable Housing Loans Originated by CDFIs on May 2 – New York Fed
• Trump’s tariffs could be another hit to Seattle-area housing affordability – The Seattle Times
• How Much is the U.S. Housing Market Worth? – Wealth of Common Sense
• Federal Workers Fired by Elon Musk’s DOGE Live in These Cities: Here’s How the Housing Market Is Responding – Realtor.com
• Trump’s ‘Gold Card’ Set Off Panic in an Unexpected Place: Real Estate. The president initially said his $5 million green card alternative would replace a visa for foreign investors that has become a favorite financing tool of major developers. – New York Times
• Housing market map: How much home insurance is expected to rise by 2055. Home insurance premiums are projected to rise by 634% in Orleans Parish and 590% in Miami-Dade County between 2025 and 2055. – Fast Company
• Rising property insurance costs stress multifamily housing. Minneapolis Fed survey finds that owners of multifamily rental housing are struggling to make ends meet as property insurance premiums increase and insurance coverage shrinks – Minneapolis Fed
• Inadequate Shelter: Millions of U.S. Homes Fail to Meet Standards – NAHB

On China:

• Will China’s economy follow the same path as Japan’s? Since the 2021 bursting of its real-estate bubble, worries have grown that China’s future economic trajectory will mirror that of Japan in the 1990s – Bruegel
• China’s New-Home Sales Steady on Continued Policy Support – Bloomberg

On Australia and New Zealand:

• [Australia] Australian’s housing market ends downturn as rate cut lifts sentiment, CoreLogic data shows – Reuters
• [Australia] Australian House Prices Rebound in February, Spurred by Rate Cut – Bloomberg
• [Australia] Housing woes are hurting our living standards. Australia’s big housing problem is contributing to our stagnating living standards and sluggish real incomes. – Financial Review

On other countries:  

• [Austria] Austria’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Canada] Solving the housing crisis is a marathon not a sprint. Solving the crisis can go faster, but will require that we change the way we build housing. – CMHC
• [Canada] Developers find new opening to bet on Canada’s housing shortage – Bloomberg
• [Canada] Toronto Home Sales Slump 29% as Economic Uncertainty Ramps Up. Prices in Canada’s biggest city fell for a third month. Some buyers are using a ‘wait-and-see’ approach, analyst says – Bloomberg
• [Finland] Finland’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [France] France’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Germany] Germany’s PBB warns of slow recovery in property market as profit drops – Reuters
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong lived-in home prices fall to lowest point in 8 years in January. Some analysts express optimism that prices would bottom out in the first half of the year – South China Morning Post
• [Hong Kong] Hong Kong home prices soften for a second month in January – Reuters
• [Italy] Italian Housing Market Survey. Short-term Outlook – 2024 Q4 – Central Bank of Italy
• [Ireland] Is the answer to Ireland’s housing crisis more apartments? The country is full of half-empty three and four-bed detached homes, chief executive of Cairn Homes Michael Stanley says – The Irish Times
• [Ireland] Ireland’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Mexico] Mexico’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide
• [Saudi Arabia] High property prices squeeze Saudis out of homeownership – Semafor
• [Singapore] Singapore’s World Famous Public Housing System Is Strained by an Overheated Market – Bloomberg
• [Switzerland] Swiss Face Rent Cuts as Mortgage Benchmark Drops to 2023 Level – Bloomberg  
• [Thailand] Thailand’s Residential Property Market Analysis 2025 – Global Property Guide  
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices rise by more than expected, Nationwide says – Reuters
• [United Kingdom] UK house prices rise more than expected in February. Average cost of £270,493 is 3.9% higher year on year as buyers try to get ahead of stamp duty changes in April – FT
• [United Kingdom] UK House Price Growth Picks Up in February, Nationwide Says. Average price of a home rises 0.4% to more than £270,000. Property market is defying wider economic slump and tax hikes – Bloomberg 
• [United Kingdom] UK Mortgage Approvals Hold Steady in Race to Beat Tax Hike. Buyers are trying to tie up deals before stamp duty increases. Consumer credit surges but households still inclined to save – Bloomberg
• [United Kingdom] UK Housing Market Set for 2025 Recovery, Building Suppliers Say – Bloomberg