The number of home sales in the United States peaked in 2021 at almost seven million after steadily rising since 2018. Nevertheless, the market contracted in the following year, with transaction volumes falling to 4.8 million. Home sales remained muted in 2024, with a mild increase expected in 2025 and 2026. A major factor driving this trend is the unprecedented increase in mortgage interest rates due to high inflation. How have U.S. home prices developed over time? The average sales price of new homes has also been rising since 2011. Buyer confidence seems to have recovered after the property crash, which has increased demand for homes and also the prices sellers are demanding for homes. At the same time, the affordability of U.S. homes has decreased. Both the number of existing and newly built homes sold has declined since the housing market boom during the coronavirus pandemic. Challenges in housing supply The number of housing units in the U.S. rose steadily between 1975 and 2005 but has remained fairly stable since then. Construction increased notably in the 1990s and early 2000s, with the number of construction starts steadily rising, before plummeting amid the infamous housing market crash. Housing starts slowly started to pick up in 2011, mirroring the economic recovery. In 2022, the supply of newly built homes plummeted again, as supply chain challenges following the COVID-19 pandemic and tariffs on essential construction materials such as steel and lumber led to prices soaring.

Graph and download economic data for All-Transactions House Price Index for the United States (USSTHPI) from Q1 1975 to Q4 2024 about appraisers, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

This is not going to be an article or Op-Ed about Michael Jordan. Since 2009 we've been in the longest bull-market in history, that's 11 years and counting. However a few metrics like the stock market P/E, the call to put ratio and of course the Shiller P/E suggest a great crash is coming in-between the levels of 1929 and the dot.com bubble. Mean reversion historically is inevitable and the Fed's printing money experiment could end in disaster for the stock market in late 2021 or 2022. You can read Jeremy Grantham's Last Dance article here. You are likely well aware of Michael Burry's predicament as well. It's easier for you just to skim through two related videos on this topic of a stock market crash. Michael Burry's Warning see this YouTube. Jeremy Grantham's Warning See this YouTube. Typically when there is a major event in the world, there is a crash and then a bear market and a recovery that takes many many months. In March, 2020 that's not what we saw since the Fed did some astonishing things that means a liquidity sloth and the risk of a major inflation event. The pandemic represented the quickest decline of at least 30% in the history of the benchmark S&P 500, but the recovery was not correlated to anything but Fed intervention. Since the pandemic clearly isn't disappearing and many sectors such as travel, business travel, tourism and supply chain disruptions appear significantly disrupted - the so-called economic recovery isn't so great. And there's this little problem at the heart of global capitalism today, the stock market just keeps going up. Crashes and corrections typically occur frequently in a normal market. But the Fed liquidity and irresponsible printing of money is creating a scenario where normal behavior isn't occurring on the markets. According to data provided by market analytics firm Yardeni Research, the benchmark index has undergone 38 declines of at least 10% since the beginning of 1950. Since March, 2020 we've barely seen a down month. September, 2020 was flat-ish. The S&P 500 has more than doubled since those lows. Look at the angle of the curve: The S&P 500 was 735 at the low in 2009, so in this bull market alone it has gone up 6x in valuation. That's not a normal cycle and it could mean we are due for an epic correction. I have to agree with the analysts who claim that the long, long bull market since 2009 has finally matured into a fully-fledged epic bubble. There is a complacency, buy-the dip frenzy and general meme environment to what BigTech can do in such an environment. The weight of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, Nvidia and Tesla together in the S&P and Nasdaq is approach a ridiculous weighting. When these stocks are seen both as growth, value and companies with unbeatable moats the entire dynamics of the stock market begin to break down. Check out FANG during the pandemic. BigTech is Seen as Bullet-Proof me valuations and a hysterical speculative behavior leads to even higher highs, even as 2020 offered many younger people an on-ramp into investing for the first time. Some analysts at JP Morgan are even saying that until retail investors stop charging into stocks, markets probably don’t have too much to worry about. Hedge funds with payment for order flows can predict exactly how these retail investors are behaving and monetize them. PFOF might even have to be banned by the SEC. The risk-on market theoretically just keeps going up until the Fed raises interest rates, which could be in 2023! For some context, we're more than 1.4 years removed from the bear-market bottom of the coronavirus crash and haven't had even a 5% correction in nine months. This is the most over-priced the market has likely ever been. At the night of the dot-com bubble the S&P 500 was only 1,400. Today it is 4,500, not so many years after. Clearly something is not quite right if you look at history and the P/E ratios. A market pumped with liquidity produces higher earnings with historically low interest rates, it's an environment where dangerous things can occur. In late 1997, as the S&P 500 passed its previous 1929 peak of 21x earnings, that seemed like a lot, but nothing compared to today. For some context, the S&P 500 Shiller P/E closed last week at 38.58, which is nearly a two-decade high. It's also well over double the average Shiller P/E of 16.84, dating back 151 years. So the stock market is likely around 2x over-valued. Try to think rationally about what this means for valuations today and your favorite stock prices, what should they be in historical terms? The S&P 500 is up 31% in the past year. It will likely hit 5,000 before a correction given the amount of added liquidity to the system and the QE the Fed is using that's like a huge abuse of MMT, or Modern Monetary Theory. This has also lent to bubbles in the housing market, crypto and even commodities like Gold with long-term global GDP meeting many headwinds in the years ahead due to a...

Portugal, Canada, and the United States were the countries with the highest house price to income ratio in 2023. In all three countries, the index exceeded 130 index points, while the average for all OECD countries stood at 117.5 index points. The index measures the development of housing affordability and is calculated by dividing nominal house price by nominal disposable income per head, with 2015 set as a base year when the index amounted to 100. An index value of 120, for example, would mean that house price growth has outpaced income growth by 20 percent since 2015. How have house prices worldwide changed since the COVID-19 pandemic? House prices started to rise gradually after the global financial crisis (2007–2008), but this trend accelerated with the pandemic. The countries with advanced economies, which usually have mature housing markets, experienced stronger growth than countries with emerging economies. Real house price growth (accounting for inflation) peaked in 2022 and has since lost some of the gain. Although, many countries experienced a decline in house prices, the global house price index shows that property prices in 2023 were still substantially higher than before COVID-19. Renting vs. buying In the past, house prices have grown faster than rents. However, the home affordability has been declining notably, with a direct impact on rental prices. As people struggle to buy a property of their own, they often turn to rental accommodation. This has resulted in a growing demand for rental apartments and soaring rental prices.

Mortgage interest rates in Spain soared in 2022, after falling below 1.5 percent at the end of 2021. In the second quarter of 2024, the average weighted interest rate stood at 3.46 percent. That was lower than the rate in the same period the previous year. Despite the increase, Spain had a considerably lower mortgage interest rate than many other European countries.The aftermath of the property bubble Before the bursting of the real estate bubble, the housing market experienced a period of intense activity. A context marked by economic growth, high employment rate, low interest rates, skyrocketing house prices and land speculation, among others, encourage massive lending for the acquisition of property; in 2005 alone, more than 1.3 million home mortgages were granted in Spain. When the bubble burst and the financial crisis hit the country, residential real estate transactions plummeted and households’ non-performing loans jumped to nearly 50 billion euros as countless families were not able to cope with their debts. Over a decade after the onset of the crisis, and despite falling mortgage rates, the volume of mortgage loans keeps decreasing every year. A homeowner country Traditionally, Spain has been a country of homeowners; in 2021, the homeownership rate was roughly 76 percent. While nearly half of Spanish households own their property with no outstanding payment, the percentage of households that have loan or mortgage pending has been decreasing in recent years. Despite ownership remaining as the preferred tenure option, cultural changes, job insecurity and mounting house prices are prompting Spaniards to opt more and more to become tenants instead of owners, as shown in the changing dynamics of the Spanish residential rental market.

In 2023, the average price of real estate in China was approximately 10,438 yuan per square meter, representing a decrease from the previous year. Rising prices in the real estate market Since the 1998 housing reform, property prices in China have been rising continuously. Housing in the country is now often unaffordable, especially considering the modest per capita income of Chinese households. Shanghai and Beijing even have some of the most competitive real estate markets in the world. The rapid growth in housing prices has increased wealth among homeowners, while it also led to a culture of speculation among buyers and real estate developers. Housing was treated as investments, with owners expecting the prices to grow further every year. Risk factors The expectation of a steadily growing real estate market has created a property bubble and a potential debt crisis. As Chinese real estate giants, such as China Evergrande and Country Garden, operate by continuously acquiring land plots and initiating new projects, which often require substantial loans and investments, a slowdown in property demands or a decline in home prices can significantly affect the financial situation of these companies, putting China’s banks in a vulnerable position. In addition, due to a lack of regulations and monetary constraints, the long-term maintenance issues of high-rise apartments are also a concern to the sustainable development of China’s cities.

The average Canadian house price declined slightly in 2023, after four years of consecutive growth. The average house price stood at 678,282 Canadian dollars in 2023 and was forecast to reach 746,379 Canadian dollars by 2026. Home sales on the rise The number of housing units sold is also set to increase over the two-year period. From 443,511 units sold, the annual number of home sales in the country is expected to rise to 453,704 in 2025. British Columbia and Ontario have traditionally been housing markets with prices above the Canadian average, and both are set to witness an increase in sales in 2025. How did Canadians feel about the future development of house prices? When it comes to consumer confidence in the performance of the real estate market in the next six months, Canadian consumers in 2024 mostly expected that the market would go up. A slightly lower share of the respondents believed real estate prices would remain the same.

Australia’s real house price index reached 122.9 in the third quarter of 2024, continuing the upward trend since the second quarter of 2023. House prices fluctuated over the reported period compared to the base year of 2015, experiencing a sharp increase throughout 2021, with the country’s house price index peaking in the first quarter of 2022 at 130.9. Prospective homeowners priced out of the market Recent house price increases reflect the ongoing challenges of housing affordability in Australia. Property prices largely outpace income growth, reigniting discussions about whether the country is stuck in a property bubble, a topic that has been debated for over a decade. The country’s house price-to-income ratio exceeded 122 in the third quarter of 2024, the highest ratio recorded over the past five years, making it increasingly difficult to get on the property ladder. Unaffordable rental conditions Australia’s rental market has also seen challenges, with the rent price index continuing to climb throughout 2024, making the prospect of renting less appealing. As of September 2024, the average weekly house rent price in Sydney stood at 775 Australian dollars, the highest across the country’s major cities. Canberra, Darwin, and Perth were the next most expensive markets for house rents, while Hobart was the most affordable capital city for both house and unit rent prices.

Housing Index in South Korea decreased to 93 points in February from 93.10 points in January of 2025. This dataset provides - South Korea House Price Index - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The home mortgage debt of households and nonprofit organizations amounted to approximately 13.1 trillion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2024. Mortgage debt has been growing steadily since 2014, when it was less than 10 billion U.S. dollars and has increased at a faster rate since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic due to the housing market boom.

Home mortgage sector in the United States

Home mortgage sector debt in the United States has been steadily growing in recent years and is beginning to come out of a period of great difficulty and problems presented to it by the economic crisis of 2008. For the previous generations in the United States the real estate market was quite stable. Financial institutions were extending credit to millions of families and allowed them to achieve ownership of their own homes. The growth of the subprime mortgages and, which went some way to contributing to the record of the highest US homeownership rate since records began, meant that many families deemed to be not quite creditworthy were provided the opportunity to purchase homes.

The rate of home mortgage sector debt rose in the United States as a direct result of the less stringent controls that resulted from the vetted and extended terms from which loans originated. There was a great deal more liquidity in the market which allowed greater access to new mortgages. The practice of packaging mortgages into securities, and their subsequent sale into the secondary market as a way of shifting risk, was to be a major factor in the formation of the American housing bubble, one of the greatest contributing factors to the global financial meltdown of 2008.

Just as in many other countries, the housing market in the UK grew substantially during the coronavirus pandemic, fueled by robust demand and low borrowing costs. Nevertheless, high inflation and the increase in mortgage rates has led to house price growth slowing down. According to the forecast, 2024 is expected to see house prices decrease by three percent. Between 2024 and 2028, the average house price growth is projected at 2.7 percent. A contraction after a period of continuous growth In June 2022, the UK's house price index exceeded 150 index points, meaning that since 2015 which was the base year for the index, house prices had increased by 50 percent. In just two years, between 2020 and 2022, the index surged by 30 index points. As the market stood in December 2023, the average price for a home stood at approximately 284,691 British pounds. Rents are expected to continue to grow According to another forecast, the prime residential market is also expected to see rental prices grow in the next years. Growth is forecast to be stronger in 2024 and slow down in the period between 2025 and 2028. The rental market in London is expected to follow a similar trend, with Central London slightly outperforming Greater London.

After a long period of steady increase in real estate prices in Spain, the market was hit by the global financial crisis of 2007, resulting in the burst of the Spanish property bubble. House prices have since picked up and in 2023, the average square meter price reached 2,809 euros - just slightly below 2008 levels. Though prices have risen across the whole country, some regions, such as the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, Madrid, and Andalusia, experienced faster growth than others. Additionally, the gap between newly built and existing home prices has widened. Spain’s real estate market behind others The property market has made great progress, but it is still far off the rest of its European counterparts, and it is positioned, in fact, at the bottom of the European list of the EMF’s house price index, which is led by Czechia and Portugal. Supply is a major factor influencing the price development. Many European countries suffer housing shortages due to sluggish construction activity, and Spain is no exception. In 2022, ranked among the countries with the lowest number of residential construction starts per 1,000 citizens in Europe. Buying vs renting As happens with many other countries, the affordability of buying a home and renting will differ considerably dependent on the area. In 2022, the average Spanish citizen needed between five and 18 years to purchase an average priced property in their region with their full salary, with Murcia and La Rioja being the most affordable regions. The house price to rent index shows that house price growth has been much faster than rental growth. That is good news for homeowners whose homes appreciate over time, but an issue for renters who are yet to purchase a property.

On the 2023 Fortune China 500 ranking for real estate companies, China’s leading real estate developer Vanke ranked first with a total revenue of 503.84 billion yuan, followed by Greenland Holdings and Country Garden.

Real estate market in China 

In the last 20 years, China’s real estate market has experienced its most prosperous development. Land purchase has also become an important source of financial revenue for many local governments. The housing price increased so rapidly, especially in larger cities, that the government had to take measures to restrict investment. With the slowdown of China’s economic development and gradually saturated market, people are also afraid of the burst of the real estate bubble. While the real estate price in smaller cities tended to stay stable or even decrease, there is still growing potential for real estate prices in larger cities, especially the first-tier cities. China’s consumers are increasingly interested in the high-quality real estate products built by leading real estate developers.

Leading real estate developers in China 

Compared to the ranking in 2021, there were three new members entering the leading ten real estate developer club in 2022. The larger developers became stronger as they had advantages in land acquisitions, financing, marketing and pricing power which is difficult for smaller developers to catch up with. Thus, consolidation is also very common among China’s real estate developers. In 2022, two real estate giants disappeared from the fortune 500 ranking list, Evergrande and Sunac. Affected by the changing real estate market, they were facing cash flow problems and were affected heavily by the debt crisis.

The average resale house price in Canada was forecast to reach nearly 836,000 Canadian dollars in 2026, according to a January forecast. In 2024, house prices increased after falling for the first time since 2019. One of the reasons for the price correction was the notable drop in transaction activity. Housing transactions picked up in 2024 and are expected to continue to grow until 2026. British Columbia, which is the most expensive province for housing, is projected to see the average house price reach 1.2 million Canadian dollars in 2026. Affordability in Vancouver Vancouver is the most populous city in British Columbia and is also infamously expensive for housing. In 2023, the city topped the ranking for least affordable housing market in Canada, with the average homeownership cost outweighing the average household income. There are a multitude of reasons for this, but most residents believe that foreigners investing in the market cause the high housing prices. Victoria housing market The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, where housing prices are also very high. The price of a single family home in Victoria's most expensive suburb, Oak Bay was 1.9 million Canadian dollars in 2024.

Some of the 21 districts of Spain’s capital city are well far off the 2,800 euros per square meter that Spaniards had to pay on average to purchase a home in 2023. The Spanish capital is home to some of the wealthiest districts of Spain, such as the historic Salamanca district, which topped the list at almost 7,000 euros per square meter. Rents in SpainWhilst Madrid’s districts had the highest prices for residential real estate, the Spanish capital was not the most expensive place to rent. Ibiza topped the list of the least affordable properties to rent, with households hypothetically requiring over 162 percent of their full income to pay off the rent. Located in the Andalusian province of Malaga, Marbella ranked second on the list, with over 156 percent of the full household income. Spain: the rebirth of a property marketAfter a long period of time in which Spain’s real estate prices increased sharply, the market was hit by the global financial crisis of 2007, making the Spanish property bubble collapse and damaging home value. It can be seen that real estate prices in Spain initiated a solid recovery in 2015, reaching 131.9 house price index points in 2021 from a lowest point of 96.27 index points recorded in 2013. The property market has made great progress, but it is still far off the rest of its European counterparts, and it is positioned, in fact, at the bottom of the European list of the EMF’s house price index, which is led by Czechia.

Despite a short period of decrease after the burst of the U.S. housing bubble and the global financial crisis, the total amount of mortgage debt in the United States has been on the rise in recent years. In 2023, the mortgage debt amounted to 20.2 trillion U.S. dollars, up from 19.3 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023. Which factors impact the amount of mortgage debt? One of the most important factors responsible for the growth of mortgage debt is the number of home sales: The more home transactions, the more mortgages are sold, adding to the volume of debt outstanding. Additionally, as house prices increase, so does the gross lending and debt outstanding. On the other hand, high numbers of housing unit foreclosures and mortgage debt restructuring and short-sales can reduce mortgage debt. Which property type has the largest share of the mortgage market? The total mortgage debt includes different property types, such as one-to-four family residential, multifamily residential, commercial, and farm, but the overwhelming share of debt can be attributed to mortgage debt one-to-four family residences.

Lennar Corp. was the homebuilder with the highest gross revenue in the United States in 2023. The Florida-based company reached a homebuilding revenue of 32.5 billion U.S. dollars. It was closely followed by D.R. Horton, which had its headquarters in Arlington (Texas) and generated a revenue of over 32 billion U.S. dollars. Challenges to the residential construction marketThe number of private housing units started fell around the time of the global financial crisis (2007-2009), but has since recovered – though not to the heights of 2006. The value of residential construction in the U.S. has been increasing since 2011. However, that trend is expected to come to an end in 2023, as housing put in place is expected to decrease in the next years. That indicates that the revenues earned by home construction companies, such as D.R. Horton, may also be affected. New home sales follow the same trend Unsurprisingly, the number of new houses sold follows the same pattern. The property crash of 2008, which was a leading factor in the global financial crisis at that time, impacted residential property sales in the United States. Although this market has recovered slowly in the years after the financial crisis, the growth in the number of new houses sold has stopped, as home sales have fallen significantly in 2021 and 2022. The number of single-family homes started began to increase in 2012, which roughly coincided in time with the period of recovery of the real estate market, but it has also decreased more recently.

Following the drastic increase directly after the COVID-19 pandemic, the delinquency rate started to gradually decline, falling to 3.37 percent in the second quarter of 2023. In the four quarters, the delinquency rate increased slightly, reaching 3.97 percent. That was significantly lower than the 8.22 percent during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the second quarter of 2020 or the peak of 9.3 percent during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2010. What does the mortgage delinquency rate tell us?The mortgage delinquency rate is the share of the total number of mortgaged home loans in the U.S. where payment is overdue by 30 days or more. Many borrowers are eventually able to service their loan, though, as indicated by the markedly lower foreclosure rates. Total home mortgage debt in the U.S. stood at almost 13 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023. Not all mortgage loans are made equal‘Subprime’ loans, being targeted at high-risk borrowers and generally coupled with higher interest rates to compensate for the risk. These loans have far higher delinquency rates than conventional loans. Defaulting on such loans was one of the triggers for the 2007-2010 financial crisis, with subprime delinquency rates reaching almost 26 percent around this time. These higher delinquency rates translate into higher foreclosure rates, which peaked at just under 15 percent of all subprime mortgages in 2011.

It can be seen that the Northern Ireland house price index was 202.5 points in the third quarter of 2007, but during the global recession it decreased and never re-gained the pre-crash levels. As of the third quarter of 2023 the residential property price index in Northern Ireland was 161.8, up from 158.5 in the same period in the previous year.

With the collapse of the U.S. housing market and the subsequent financial crisis on Wall Street in 2007 and 2008, economies across the globe began to enter into deep recessions. What had started out as a crisis centered on the United States quickly became global in nature, as it became apparent that not only had the economies of other advanced countries (grouped together as the G7) become intimately tied to the U.S. financial system, but that many of them had experienced housing and asset price bubbles similar to that in the U.S.. The United Kingdom had experienced a huge inflation of housing prices since the 1990s, while Eurozone members (such as Germany, France and Italy) had financial sectors which had become involved in reckless lending to economies on the periphery of the EU, such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Other countries, such as Japan, were hit heavily due their export-led growth models which suffered from the decline in international trade. Unemployment during the Great Recession As business and consumer confidence crashed, credit markets froze, and international trade contracted, the unemployment rate in the most advanced economies shot up. While four to five percent is generally considered to be a healthy unemployment rate, nearing full employment in the economy (when any remaining unemployment is not related to a lack of consumer demand), many of these countries experienced rates at least double that, with unemployment in the United States peaking at almost 10 percent in 2010. In large countries, unemployment rates of this level meant millions or tens of millions of people being out of work, which led to political pressures to stimulate economies and create jobs. By 2012, many of these countries were seeing declining unemployment rates, however, in France and Italy rates of joblessness continued to increase as the Euro crisis took hold. These countries suffered from having a monetary policy which was too tight for their economies (due to the ECB controlling interest rates) and fiscal policy which was constrained by EU debt rules. Left with the option of deregulating their labor markets and pursuing austerity policies, their unemployment rates remained over 10 percent well into the 2010s. Differences in labor markets The differences in unemployment rates at the peak of the crisis (2009-2010) reflect not only the differences in how economies were affected by the downturn, but also the differing labor market institutions and programs in the various countries. Countries with more 'liberalized' labor markets, such as the United States and United Kingdom experienced sharp jumps in their unemployment rate due to the ease at which employers can lay off workers in these countries. When the crisis subsided in these countries, however, their unemployment rates quickly began to drop below those of the other countries, due to their more dynamic labor markets which make it easier to hire workers when the economy is doing well. On the other hand, countries with more 'coordinated' labor market institutions, such as Germany and Japan, experiences lower rates of unemployment during the crisis, as programs such as short-time work, job sharing, and wage restraint agreements were used to keep workers in their jobs. While these countries are less likely to experience spikes in unemployment during crises, the highly regulated nature of their labor markets mean that they are slower to add jobs during periods of economic prosperity.