Meagre house price growth may kill off a UK obsession

• ? Short of an unlikely jump in interest rates or a no‐deal Brexit proving more damaging than we expect, we think that positive but sluggish growth will continue to characterise UK house prices for the foreseeable future.
• ? Mooted reforms to stamp duty could prompt some upward price pressure, although stretched affordability and the end of ‘Help to Buy’ will work in the opposite direction.
• ? Meanwhile, compared to the dominant role interest rates play in driving house prices, fulfilling the government's housebuilding goals ‐ even if these very ambitious target could be met ‐ would make only a modest difference.

     

Housing slump could cut world growth to decade‐low

• ? A combined slump in house prices and housing investment in the major economies could cut world growth to a 10‐year low of 2.2% by 2020 – and to below 2% if it also triggered a tightening in global credit conditions.
• ? In such a scenario, inflation would remain well below target in the main economies, and US Fed rates would be up to 100 basis points lower than in our baseline by 2021.
• ? Signs of a global house price downturn are already visible, with around a third of our sample of economies seeing falling prices and world residential investment starting to decline. High house price valuations add to the risk that this downturn will deepen in the coming quarters, hitting consumer spending.
• ? Using the Oxford Global Economic Model, we find that a 10% fall in house prices and an 8% fall in housing investment both cut growth by around 0.3%‐0.4% across regions. Adding a sharp Chinese downturn, such as that seen in 2015, has a large additional impact on growth in Asia .

     

Measuring housing affordability: Looking beyond the median

We draw a distinction between the concepts of purchase affordability (whether a household is able to borrow enough funds to purchase a house) and repayment affordability (the burden imposed on a household of repaying the mortgage). We operationalize this distinction in the context of a new methodology for constructing affordability measures that draws on the value-at-risk concept and takes account of the whole distribution of household income and house prices rather than just the median. Empirically we find that the distinction between purchase and repayment affordability can be pronounced. In the Sydney prime mortgage market over the period 1996–2006, repayment affordability deteriorated very significantly while purchase affordability remained quite stable. This difference can be attributed to the loosening of credit constraints in the mortgage market which it seems has carried through primarily into higher house prices rather than an improvement in purchase affordability. We also show how median house-price-to-income ratio measures of affordability can be extended to take account of the whole distribution of income and house prices, and how as a result of differential skewness in the house price and income distributions the housing affordability problem may be significantly worse for lower income households than suggested by standard median measures.     

Wealth spurt unlikely to offer much aid to the consumer

• ? UK households are wealthier than ever, thanks to continued growth in house prices and a buoyant stock market. However, the nature and distribution of that wealth means that support for consumer spending from a ‘wealth effect’ is likely to be both small and less than in the past.
• ? In Q4 2016, households' holdings of owner‐occupied property and net holdings of financial assets amounted to £9.2tr, almost 8% up on the level a year earlier. This was equivalent to 719% of annual household gross disposable income, a near‐record high.
• ? A long‐established feature of economics is the concept of a ‘wealth effect’ – the premise that faced with rising wealth levels, households feel more comfortable and economically secure and hence spend more. But the economic literature differs on how large this effect is.
• ? Our own Global Model suggests that the wealth effect is modest, with a 10% rise in wealth boosting consumer spending by only around 0.2%. One reason is that about half of financial wealth consists of highly illiquid assets in pension funds. But this component has recently been the biggest source of growth in wealth.
• ? Given differences in the propensity to consume out of income and wealth, the concentration of financial and housing assets among better‐off households will also act to neuter the size of any wealth effect. The wealthiest one percent of households hold around 20% of household wealth. But the bottom quartile owns only 1.5%.
• ? Meanwhile, the housing market has created an ever‐greater concentration of wealth. The share of households owning their own property fell from 71% to 63% in the decade to 2015. But the share of private renters more than doubled in the same period, from 9% to just over 19%. And the pre‐crisis appetite to finance consumption by borrowing against the value of property shows no sign of returning.

     

A panel data analysis for housing affordability in Taiwan

Although the equilibrium relationship between household income and house price is well documented in previous theoretical studies, the empirical results are usually unfavorable. This article examines whether a long-term relationship between house price and income exists through a panel integration and cointegration methodology in analyzing data from four cities in Taiwan from 1980 to 2007. The findings support the existence of a long-term equilibrium relationship between income and house price, which indicate that housing affordability in Taiwan is stable. After controlling other variables, the income elasticity of house prices on average is close to one. Furthermore, evidence points to a bi-directional causality between income and house price.     

中国城市居民住房支付能力研究

虽然住宅价格是由住宅市场的供给和需求决定的,但从长期来看,住宅价格应该与城市居民家庭的住房支付能力相适应.评价住房支付能力的指标有房价收入比(PIR)和住房可支付性指数(HAI),房价收入比用于判读住房价格是否合理,而住房可支付性指数能够反映家庭购买住房的还贷能力.论文通过计算2004年我国34个主要城市的房价收入比和住房可支付性指数,对我国城市居民的住房支付能力进行了城市排序.参照国外相关指标的评价标准,论文采用Pareto累计图的评价方法,得出了我国当前房价收入比和住房可支付性指数的分布区间.论文的研究成果既可作为政府调控城市住宅市场发展的依据,也可作为居民投资置业的依据.     

Do policymakers need to cool the UK housing market?

The combination of government schemes and a recovery in the wider economy underpinned a robust pickup in housing transactions and house prices through 2013. But there is no evidence of a housing bubble across most of the country. Across the majority of regions prices are still below previous peaks in nominal terms and much lower still in real terms. Meanwhile measures of affordability and indebtedness are in a much better state than they were prior to the financial crisis. The exception is London, where supply shortages and strong demand have pushed both the price‐to‐income ratio and average income multiple back to previous highs. An improving macroeconomic backdrop and ongoing support from Help to Buy should ensure that demand continues to strengthen, supporting further growth in transactions. There has been a strong supply response over the past nine months and this should continue, which will help to keep a lid on price growth. Divergent macroeconomic prospects across the regions will lead to a wide variation in house price growth, with London expected to lead the way. We do not see a case for changing the terms of Help to Buy, particularly given that the most likely source of a bubble is London, where the impact of Help to Buy is likely to be small. In our view, the average income multiple is crucial and macro prudential tools should be used if it continues to rise above previous peaks in any regions. The most likely cause of a bubble at the national level would be an inadequate supply response. Alongside its policies to support demand, the government should implement a series of measures aimed at increasing supply, including planning reform, and it could also consider using its low borrowing costs to fund public sector house building.     

Economic Outlook 1991 – 1995: The London Business School with Gower Publishing: THE HOUSING MAFUCJIT IN RECESSION : A PAINFUL ADJUSTMENT TO ERM DISCIPLINE

We, together with almost every other commentator on the UK housing market, forecast a recovery of house prices and turnover during 1991. These hopes have been disappointed. This Forecast Release addresses some of the questions raised by this prolonged weakness in the housing market. Why did we, and so many others mis-judge the outlook for house prices and housing investment? Are there structural problems, especially those associated with the adjustment to the inflationary discipline of the E M, which are preventing a revival? When will recoverly take place and can there ever be a house-price boom similar to 1984–1988 again? One reason for the unanticipated weakness of the housing market is the growing problem of mortgage arrears and possessions. This can be expected to produce at least some temporary weakening of house prices as a reaction to the current volume of empty properties being put onto the market. There is a more fundamental reason for the current weakness of house prices. Unlike previous house price booms and busts, the present recession offers no relief to the hard-pressed borrower in the form of a rapid inflation of average earnings. Difficulties with mortgage repayments, for highly indebted households, are set to continue for some time. These lessons are not being lost, either on prospective purchasers who are’ being discouraged from taking out substantial mortgages in relation to their incomes, or on mortgage lenders who are being much more prudent in the setting of mortgage to- income and mortgage-to-price limits. The result is a long overdue adjustment of British attitudes towards own er-occupation.     

G7 consumption: after the wealth rush

• ? In only one of 12 large advanced economies do we expect consumption to outstrip GDP growth in 2018. As key drivers rotate, the impact of a recovery in real incomes will be dampened by higher oil prices and waning wealth effects .
• ? Policy‐fuelled asset booms sustained the post‐crisis recovery in G7 consumption, though by historical standards the recovery was nothing special. Historically, the G7's average 5‐year recovery from troughs entailed consumption matching GDP growth, but in the five years from 2010 consumption was 0.2 ppt weaker. Its relative strength only picked up from 2015, when boosted by weak oil prices.
• ? Relatively weak G7 consumption growth is likely to continue as key drivers rotate. Strong employment growth and a modest pick‐up in wage inflation will offset waning equity and housing wealth effects.
• ? Near‐term risks are two‐way. An oil‐fuelled inflation surprise could hit consumers, wreck central bank gradualism and reveal balance sheet weaknesses. Currently, however, we see only limited pockets of credit risk and vulnerability to higher rates.
• ? Conversely, there is scope for a credit‐fuelled boost to consumption. G7 household borrowing relative to its trend is arguably close to 40‐year lows, so unless financial deepening has reached a limit, there is scope for increases in borrowing. Furthermore, G7 bank deleveraging could be over, boosting credit supply conditions.
• ? We see two positive longer‐term drivers of the global consumption share: (i) Asian economies will become more consumption‐driven; (ii) Household re‐leveraging offers scope for some debt‐fuelled consumption growth. Offsetting negatives are that demographics, interest rates and asset prices will provide little support

     

THE DYNAMICS OF UK NATIONAL AND REGIONAL HOUSE PRICES

In this paper, the Johansen cointegration technique is applied to modeling the dynamics of national and regional house prices. It is concluded that household income, real mortgage rate and housing completions are significant factors influencing house price changes at the national level. The underlying structure of the national market is investigated, showing that while price trends in some regions of the UK are strongly related by causal processes, others are relatively independent     

UK Household Debt: A Threat to Growth or Stability?

The liberalisation of credit constraints in the 1970s for UK consumers has had important implications for the housing market and consumer spending. This paper by John Muellbauer¹ examines the factors that have driven soaring consumer debt and house price levels; in particular those observed since the mid-1990s. By relying on recent econometric evidence and trends in credit availability, real income per head, nominal and real after tax mortgage rates, measures of perceived risk and broad demographic trends, it also analyses the prospects for house prices, mortgage debt and unsecured debt over the coming years. The outlook is for a 'soft landing' in the housing market and associated declines in the rate of growth of consumer debt, which, although probably not smooth, does suggest the underlying situation is more benign and less crisis-prone than it was in 1988–89.     

World Economic Prospects

Overview: World growth cut as financial woes persist

• This month sees our world GDP forecast for 2016 cut to 2.3%, from 2.6% previously. Our new forecast implies this year will be the weakest for the world economy since 2009.
• Our 2016 growth forecast was over 3% in mid‐2015. But the economic backdrop has worsened markedly since, with steep drops in stock markets, slumping commodities and widening credit spreads.
• We flagged the risks from the financial market sell‐off last month and conditions have improved little since. Worse, there are some signs that weakness in the real economy may be broadening.
• This month's global downgrade partly reflects familiar factors such as worsening emerging markets: we now expect even deeper recessions in Brazil and Russia.
• The US forecast has also been downgraded again, to 2% from 2.4% last month. This in part reflects a soft Q4 GDP reading, one worrying detail of which was a weaker performance by consumer spending.
• Signs of a slowdown in services were also visible in the PMI surveys for January in the US and Eurozone. Partly as a result, our Eurozone growth forecast has been cut this month to 1.6% from 1.8%.
• With world industry already stagnant, signs of weakness spreading to services are unwelcome. We are particularly concerned that the financial market slump will create a negative global credit and confidence shock.
• Another concern is that the collapse in world stock prices is starting to have ‘negative wealth effects’. For most consumers, wealth effects are more likely to be generated by house price moves. In this respect, there is some room for optimism – house prices are still growing in most of the main economies.
• But housing is weakening in some emerging countries and world house and stock prices have tended to move together since 2007.
• Pressures on policymakers to act remain strong and are increasingly focused on using negative interest rates – as in Japan and Sweden in the last month.

     

Trump versus Reagan – the global dimension

• ? Could the Trump era resemble the 1980s? ‘Reaganomics’ boosted world growth – but not necessarily in the ways people think – and not for emerging markets (EMs), a larger part of today's world economy. Growth then was also aided by factors such as declining interest rates, which are missing today, and we doubt that deregulation will lead to a productivity surge. US asset prices, meanwhile, were depressed in 1981, unlike now, so the big gains of the 1980s are unlikely to be repeated. EM assets should do better than back then, though.
• ? Optimistic observers – and to some extent, markets – have been drawing parallels between the policy mixes of the Trump and Reagan administrations, and talking up the prospects of stronger global growth. But while the US did support world growth in the 1980s, this was arguably more due to Keynesian' demand‐side policies than supply‐side ones: Reagan's record on supply‐side policies was mixed.
• ? The US is still an important driver of global activity, but markets may be too optimistic about the effect of Trump's policies on world growth. Any Trump fiscal stimulus will occur against a much less favourable background than that of the 1980s, when US growth also benefitted from a variety of factors missing now.
• ? It is also unclear whether Trump's administration will tolerate large expansions of the current account and fiscal deficits as the ‘price’ for more growth. And we are sceptical about the prospects of big gains from deregulation: US economic dynamism has waned, but the policies so far proposed in this area look potentially misdirected.
• ? Over the coming years asset market performance is unlikely to mirror that of the 1980s: valuations suggest less room for dollar appreciation and stock market gains this time around. But emerging market (EM) assets may do better – the soaring dollar and high US rates that hit EMs in the 1980s are unlikely to be repeated. And our analysis suggests even modestly better US growth will support commodity prices and EM growth.

     

House Prices, Housing Investment and Demography Forecasts from the LBS/Abbey National Model of the UK Housing Market

A new housing sector has been incorporated into the London Business School model. This article outlines the new housing model, summarizes the research which has gone into its construction, and presents a forecast of the UK housing market. Using the new housing model, we forecast a moderate recovery in the housing market in the later part of 1991 and 1992. This recovery is however short-lived and does not result in such high rates of house price increase as previous house price booms (Chart 1).
Cuts in interest rates following entry to the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS prompt a recovery in house prices from the middle of 1991. House price inflation then peaks with an increase in average UK house prices in 1992 of 11 per cent over the previous year. Increases in real personal disposable income are modest, by the standards of the 1980s, and for this reason the recovery does not develop the momentum of previous house price booms. House price inflation moderates again in 1993 falling back to around 7 per cent. Housing starts and housing investment recover only slightly from their present depressed levels.
the recovery in house prices is weaker than that foreseen in our April Forecast Release. This is because real personal disposable income is now forecast to grow more slowly during 1991. Sterling's membership of the ERM is followed by a fall in interest rates, but it is the timing of interest rate cuts rather than their magnitude which differs from the earlier forecast. The changed profile of interest rates has altered the house price forecast only marginally.     

Do Teaser-Rate Adjustable-Rate Mortgages Make Owner-Occupied Housing More Affordable?

In this paper, we estimate the structural parameters of an aggregate housing demand curve and the relationship between ARM teaser rates and house prices using a simultaneous-equation Tobit model. The data come primarily from the Federal Housing Finance Board monthly interest rate survey in May of 1987-1989. The empirical results suggest that teaser ARMs produce significant price distortions in local housing markets. These price distortions ameliorate housing affordability for teaser ARM borrowers and worsen affordability problems for all other homebuyers.     

A micro view on home equity withdrawal and its determinants: Evidence from Dutch households

For most households, home ownership is the largest wealth component that has become more accessible through innovation and deregulation in mortgage markets. This paper studies the factors driving home equity withdrawal (HEW) at the household level using Dutch survey data. In the Netherlands, house prices were growing fast and mortgage expenses are to a large extent tax deductible. Expectations and perceptions do seem to play an important role in HEW. Withdrawers tend to be more positive about house price developments and – although having lower income – less concerned about their future economic situation. HEW can have a significant impact on both households and the economy, with most of the equity released being reinvested in the housing sector and only a small share used to finance consumption expenditure.     

Do house prices reflect fundamentals? Aggregate and panel data evidence

We investigate whether recently high and consequently rapidly decreasing U.S. house prices have been justified by fundamental factors such as personal income, population, house rent, stock market wealth, building costs, and mortgage rate. We first conduct the standard unit root and cointegration tests with aggregate data. Nationwide analysis potentially suffers from problems of the low power of stationarity tests and the ignorance of dependence among regional house markets. Therefore, we also employ panel data stationarity tests which are robust to cross-sectional dependence. Contrary to previous panel studies of the U.S. housing market, we consider several, not just one, fundamental factors. Our results confirm that panel data unit root tests have greater power as compared with univariate tests. However, the overall conclusions are the same for both methodologies. The house price does not align with the fundamentals in sub-samples prior to 1996 and from 1997 to 2006. It appears that the real estate prices take long swings from their fundamental value and it can take decades before they revert to it. The most recent correction (a collapsed bubble) occurred around 2006.     

UK inflation set to tumble below target by autumn

• ? We expect CPI inflation to slow markedly this year, dropping below the 2% target by the autumn. The inflationary impulse from the 2016 depreciation is fading and should partially reverse, while global food and energy prices are expected to stabilise. Base effects will become increasingly important.
• ? CPI inflation reached a five‐and‐a‐half‐year high of 3.1% in November, up from a little over 1% a year earlier. The 2017 pick‐up in inflation was the result of a perfect storm of a weaker pound, higher oil prices and sharp rises in domestic electricity bills. But inflation has subsequently slowed, reaching 2.5% in March. And, after a brief hiatus, we expect the downward trend to continue as we move through the year.
• ? The key driver of lower inflation will be weaker core pressures. In line with the literature, there is already evidence that the impact of sterling's depreciation is fading, and we think that the pressures could partially reverse if sterling continues to strengthen. We see little prospect of an offsetting escalation in domestic cost pressures. The recent pick‐up in wage growth has been muted and a further acceleration above 3% looks unlikely while there remains slack in the labour market.
• ? The food, petrol and energy categories contributed 0.8 ppt to CPI inflation last year, compared with a drag of 0.5 ppt in 2016, as stronger global pressures combined with the weaker pound. But as global prices have been more subdued of late, by the end of 2018, we expect these categories to be contributing 0.5 ppt to CPI inflation.
• ? The final element behind the expected slowdown in inflation is base effects. The comparison with last year's strong price pressures will depress the 2018 inflation rate, and we see the base effects being at their strongest mid‐year.
• ? We think it unlikely that such a slowdown in inflation would derail the MPC from hiking interest rates twice this year. But it could temper its hawkishness in 2019.

     

Higher interest rates should not unduly faze consumers

• ? Though the MPC has signalled a more aggressive pace of interest hikes than previously anticipated, we still expect the impact on the consumer sector in aggregate to be modest. We estimate that household debt servicing costs will rise from the current level of 4.1% of household income to 5.0% by the end of 2019. This would still be only a little over half the pre‐crisis peak.
• ? We expect the MPC to hike interest rates twice in both 2018 and 2019, taking Bank Rate to 1.5% by the end of next year. Higher interest rates will impact on consumer spending by increasing debt servicing costs and reducing the attractiveness of credit (including mortgages), but savers will benefit from higher returns on their deposits.
• ? Mortgages account for 77% of loans to UK households and full pass through of a 100bp rise in Bank Rate to variable rate loans, implying an increase from 2.78% to 3.78%, would add £100 a month to the cost of servicing an average mortgage. But only two‐fifths of borrowers have a variable rate deal, so for many homeowners the adjustment to higher interest rates will not be immediate. And the proportion of houses which are owned via a mortgage has fallen over the past decade, suggesting that the household sector as a whole will be less sensitive to higher mortgage interest rates.
• ? Historically the relationship between Bank Rate and interest rates on unsecured lending has been weak and rates on credit cards and personal loans have not yet risen following November's rate hike. The link to deposit rates has been stronger and higher returns on savings will mitigate some of the damage to household income from higher debt servicing costs, although uneven distribution of debt and savings means that there will be winners and losers at a more disaggregated level.
• ? We have used the Oxford Economics Global Economic Model to run a counterfactual scenario where Bank Rate is kept at 0.5% throughout 2018 and 2019. The results suggest that the pace of rate hikes assumed in our baseline forecast would reduce the level of consumer spending by 0.2 percentage points by the end of 2019.

     

China‐commodity nexus at the heart of global upturn

• ? The China‐commodity nexus has been at the heart of the global upturn in trade and industry. It could directly and indirectly account for as much as 70% of the recovery since mid‐2016, based on our analysis. We think this nexus will continue to support world growth in the near term, but the global upturn is vulnerable to moderating Chinese growth and slippage in commodity prices.
• ? China has directly accounted for around a third of the upturn in world trade, similar to the contribution of G7 countries. But adding in indirect effects, China's influence is likely to have been much more significant. Stronger Chinese demand has contributed to an improvement in the trade performance of its Asian trading partners, commodity exporters and other advanced economies.
• ? Using a model simulation that introduces positive shocks to imports in “greater China” and to commodity prices (based on the scale we have seen since mid‐2016), our top‐end estimate for China's contribution to the upturn in world trade is around 70%.
• ? The simulation points to especially strong improvements in output and exports for economies such as South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and some commodity exporters. This broadly matches the pattern of performance seen over recent months, though commodity exporters' performance has been quite mixed.
• ? G7 investment growth is likely to have played only a modest role in the recent global upturn. But Japan is an exception, while upgrades to investment forecasts for South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong have also been large.
• ? A 1% rise in commodity prices could raise commodity exporters' investment by 0.3–0.6%, based on our analysis. As a result, there could be additional improvement in commodity exporters' investment this year, supporting world growth. However, with our forecasts suggesting that commodity prices are set to slip further over the coming quarters, this boost could prove short‐lived.