Fed's George: US house prices remain above pre-pandemic trend

Fed's Esther George on US housing market says:

• US house prices remain above pre-pandemic trend, and one can argue it is parked due to quantitative easing Quantitative Easing Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy in which a central bank buys government bonds or other financial assets in order to inject money into the economy to expand economic activity.One of the byproducts if not goal of QE is to help drive down the value of a currency, thereby making one’s exports, equities, and other products more affordable on a global stage.QE is considered an unconventional form of monetary policy and is usually used when inflation is very low or negative or when standa Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy in which a central bank buys government bonds or other financial assets in order to inject money into the economy to expand economic activity.One of the byproducts if not goal of QE is to help drive down the value of a currency, thereby making one’s exports, equities, and other products more affordable on a global stage.QE is considered an unconventional form of monetary policy and is usually used when inflation is very low or negative or when standa Read this Term
• The distributional effects of this is at the expense of the 1st time homebuyers

The comments are not policy related or particularly insightful with regard to the economy, but will be on the lookout for more substance and potential clarity of her views as the December meeting approaches.

More from George:

• as we tighten policy, dynamics of excess savings is going to be key factor for the economic outlook
• higher savings could provide further impetus to consumption
• could well take a higher interest rate for some time to convince households to hold onto savings
• current data suggest savings is elevated across the spectrum
• but lower income households are running down their buffers more quickly
• reduced inflation will mean we have to incentivize savings over consumption
• wage growth remains a strong
• understanding wage growth important to tracking overall path of inflation
• workers who switch jobs are seeing greater wage growth
• labor market with less churn could reduce inflationary pressures
• many of my contacts report problems with low worker engagement, a drag on productivity