The Federal Reserve wants to slowly and quietly extricate itself from the U.S. housing market. That may be wishful thinking.
For perspective on the Fed’s influence over the housing market since it launched its emergency bond-buying program two years ago, consider this point by Richard Farr, chief market strategist at Merion Capital Group. Some 762,000 new homes were sold at an average price of $453,700 in 2021, meaning that the Fed—looking just at its $40 billion-a-month in mortgage-backed securities purchases—bought the equivalent…