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Journal Article
New-Tenant Rent Passthrough and the Future of Rent Inflation
New-tenant rent inflation rose sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequently falling. Concomitantly, consumer price index (CPI) tenant rent, which measures rent increases for both new and continuing renters, rose more gradually and, after falling somewhat, has remained elevated. To illustrate why CPI rent inflation has remained elevated, we combine a measure of new-tenant rents and annual renter mobility rates to create a simulated CPI tenant rent inflation measure. We use this simulation to define a “rent gap” that represents the difference between actual CPI tenant rent inflation ...
Journal Article
Comparing Two House-Price Booms
In this Economic Commentary, we compare characteristics of the 2000–2006 house-price boom that preceded the Great Recession to the house-price boom that began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. These two episodes of high house-price growth have important differences, including the behavior of rental rates, the dynamics of housing supply and demand, and the state of the mortgage market. The absence of changes in fundamentals during the 2000s is consistent with the literature emphasizing house-price beliefs during this prior episode. In contrast to during the 2000s boom, changes in ...