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Ask the
Economist
Ralph DeFranco
Global Chief Economist – Mortgage
Services, Arch Capital Services, Inc.
alph DeFranco is the Global
Chief Economist of Mortgage
Services at Arch Capital Services,
Inc. DeFranco is charged with
forecasting home prices, and
assessing housing market risk. He also
authors Arch's quarterly Housing and
Mortgage Market Review
®
, as well as its
corresponding webinars. Before joining
Arch, he was the Internal Audit Risk
Modeling Director for Freddie Mac, a Senior
Manager at JPMorgan Chase, and First VP
of Washington Mutual. He holds a Ph.D. in
Economics from the University of California
at Berkeley.
According to the Spring 2017 Housing and
Mortgage Market Review home prices
aren't dropping anytime soon. Why is this?
And what can we expect for housing
prices as this year continues? Apart from
some weakness in energy-extraction states,
home prices in most cities will rise faster
than inflation for the foreseeable future,
due to strong demand and limited supply.
Positive factors include fast employment
growth, higher-than-normal rent increases,
affordability still satisfactory relative to the
past, and a growing shortage of housing. If
not for the tough hurdles faced by first-time
homebuyers— such as high student debt
and stagnant wages, home prices would be
growing at an even faster pace.
