Home prices: high, but not rising
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Good morning. Ethan and I, like much of the rest of the world, are looking nervously toward the Ukraine, hoping diplomacy works and wondering what will happen if it does not. But as we had little new to add on that topic, we focused on the US economy instead. Email us: Robert.Armstrong@ft.com and Ethan.Wu@ft.com.
House price inflation
One of the worrisome things in last week’s inflation report was a tick up in rent. CPI rent rose 0.5 per cent between December and January, up from 0.4 per cent the previous month. The pre-pandemic trend runs something over 0.3 per cent.
Part of the reason that this quite small increase in rent inflation threw people may be that it took place against a background of very high house price inflation. Surely, given that house prices are up 30 or more per cent…
