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 fundamentals (including rent and demand growth) played a more dominant role in the 2020s house-price boom.