Housing Market and the Economy

Knowledge@Wharton, 6/5/17
A recent report complied by real estate website Trulia reveals a wildly uneven housing recovery, in which some parts of the country are seeing prices for nearly all homes above their earlier peaks, while in other areas, most homes are still far below those levels.

SeekingAlpha, 3/22/17
The economy is picking up steam and in some cities it is very possible that there is another bubble in the real estate market.

New York Times, 2/10/17
Suppose there were a way to pump up the economy, reduce inequality and put an end to destructive housing bubbles like the one that contributed to the Great Recession.

Forbes, 1/3/17
Here are eight things housing experts expect to see in 2017.

Economist, 11/12/16
Whereas local housing markets rose and fell together during the housing bubble and bust, the housing recovery which began in America in 2012 has been patchy.

VOX, 10/24/16
Rising housing prices are accompanied by higher household consumption and firm investment that boost economic growth. However, excessive house price appreciations may distort capital allocation efficiency, for example by crowding out investments in productive sectors, which reduce long-term economic growth.

U.S. News & World Report, 9/20/16
Mortgage rates are low, but so is homeownership.

Bloomberg, 7/27/16
It turns out that even the well-off need help in a housing market as crazy as the one in the San Francisco Bay area, and lenders are elbowing each other in a rush to provide it.

Marketing Daily, 6/1/16
Housing prices in March were up 5.2% over a year ago and consumer spending in April rose 1% over the previous month — the steepest rise since August 2009 — making Federal Reserve interest rate hike ever more likely in the coming months, analysts say.

MarketWatch, 5/6/16
According to the author, we’re seeing the same telltale signs that we did a decade ago.

Reuters, 3/3/16
Home flipping - buying and reselling a home to make a quick buck - has risen in some hot U.S. housing markets, prompting concerns that local housing bubbles could be developing.

Knowledge@Wharton, 8/4/15
Home ownership rates in the U.S. stood at 63.4% in the second quarter of 2015, continuing a downward trend in the sector over the last year or so. But more importantly, the rate of home ownership is getting close to historic lows.

New York Times, 6/24/15
The nation’s homeownership rate has been falling for eight years, down to 63.7 percent in the first quarter of this year from a peak of over 69 percent in 2004, according to a new report by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

WSJ, 6/1/15
The online real estate database Zillow crunched numbers for job and wage growth alongside housing costs in the first quarter of 2015 to land on a “sweet spot” of affordable homes and healthy local economies.

New York Times, 2/24/15
Builders are turning to the wealthy as the most reliable market on which to place their bets.

New York Times, 2/7/15
The housing market has shown signs of life recently. Prices have risen, mortgage rates are very attractive and construction is reviving. But...

The Atlantic, 1/8/15
While some remain cynical about homeownership, the U.S.'s foreign-born population still regards it as a symbol of attaining the American Dream.

New York Times, 10/22/14
Through the end of last year, only a tiny sliver of borrowers tarnished by foreclosures and short sales during the economic downturn had bought homes again, according to a study by Experian, one of the Big Three credit reporting bureaus.

New York Times, 9/23/14
Cities across the state are grappling with a dwindling stock of housing that can be considered affordable for anyone but the wealthiest. In much of the state, a two-bedroom apartment or home is virtually impossible to acquire with anything less than a six-figure salary.

New York Times, 6/28/14
Despite the notoriety that subprime loans gained as a prime cause of the financial crisis, they are re-emerging, under much more careful control, as one answer to the tight lending standards that have shut out millions of would-be homeowners.

New York Times, 5/27/14
A steep gain in home prices in many markets that helped lift millions of Americans out of the red on their mortgages is now markedly slowing, with new data from the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller national home price index on Tuesday showing that the annual growth in prices had eased in March to 10.3 percent, from the previous year’s increase of 11.4 percent.

New York Times, 4/24/14
Except in a few booming markets, housing is nowhere close to pulling its economic weight.

New York Times, 3/2/14
As technology companies have moved in — more than 5,000 start-ups now make their home locally — the influx of well-paid workers has pushed rents and home prices through the roof.

Economist, 1/4/14
A radical plan to help “underwater” homeowners makes a comeback.

IMF, December 2013
The housing market is recovering, but real estate in many countries is still overvalued.

New York Times, 9/24/13
The housing market, one of the main drivers of the economic recovery, continues to gain strength despite the drag of rising mortgage rates and other economic headwinds, but some analysts are worried that it may slow in the months ahead.

New York Times, 6/3/13
The last time the housing market was this hot in Phoenix and Las Vegas, the buyers pushing up prices were mostly small time. Nowadays, they are big time — Wall Street big.

New York Times, 5/28/13
Americans are in a buying mood, thanks largely to the housing recovery.

U.S. news & World Report, 4/9/13
There's a tug of war going on in the U.S. economy at the moment, and a big unanswered question is which side will prevail: a rebounding housing market that's boosting the economy or government austerity that's dragging it down.

New York Times, 1/24/13
A funny thing is happening to the United States housing market. It is getting better at an accelerating rate.

NAR is a trade association for real estate market. Includes reports on housing and economic statistics.