Why house prices are surging once again

Hello from London,

Refreshed after some time away (and nowhere is more delightful than Sicily in the early summer), I offer you a sporting prediction. Whatever siren voices the English football team hear in the coming weeks, fans should squelch any fantasy of winning the Euros. England played their opening game last night, scraping a 1-0 win against mighty Serbia (ranked 33rd in the world). Expect tiresome talk across the country—yet again—of football “coming home”. 

We have published an analysis that puts cold, hard numbers on the chances of that happening. I also recommend a fascinating story on the secret of how to take better penalties (hint: it involves technology). But you really don’t need stats to know what, inevitably, is going to happen. Enjoy the tournament, England fans, but those with cooler heads should read our review of a book on the rise of the extraordinarily dominant French team. England, not football, will be coming home early. Go on, prove me wrong.

Assuming the French do win yet another tournament, it will come too late to give any electoral boost to Emmanuel Macron, their country’s beleaguered president. He has called a legislative election (snap ones are in vogue) amid growing concern over the rise of the far right. We have published our latest assessment of the worrying state of France’s electoral politics, ahead of the first round of voting on June 30th. Look out for our profile of the man of the moment: Jordan Bardella, a 28-year-old deputy to Marine Le Pen who might just become prime minister. Markets are already twitchy.

In America too there’s much to consider. Is a housing boom on the way there (and indeed, in other countries, too)? We have a new article that suggests it is. And will the Supreme Court rule on whether presidents are immune from prosecution? A decision could be handed down soon. We’ll also be asking about the Senate, and how that chamber might behave were Republicans to take control, as seems likely, after November. That matters whoever sits in the White House.

Elsewhere, I’ll be looking out for Vladimir Putin, who is rumoured to be making a visit any day to his fellow tyrant, Kim Jong Un, in Pyongyang. No, it’s not a gathering of Bond villains. It seems this is to do with North Korea’s role as a supplier of military goods to Russia. The Hermit Kingdom is helping to prolong the war in Ukraine.

For some relief the latest edition of my favourite game, Dateline, is live. Can you guess the five different years referred to this week? To my chagrin, as a former resident of Chicago, I blundered badly on that great city’s devastating fire. See if you can do better.  

Finally, it’s the week of the summer solstice—one to relish. I’m part Nordic and love the idea of sparking up a big bonfire on a beach to mark the year’s shortest night. At The Economist we’ll respond with less pyromania but hopefully by shedding as much light. We’ll publish a series of articles on the thrilling prospects for solar power. Solar produced 4.5% of all the world’s electricity in 2022, which doesn’t sound like much. But growth is happening exponentially, as the light-speed installation of ridiculously cheap solar pushes aside so many other sources. It’s fair to predict that by the next decade solar power will be on course to being a dominant source of energy globally. This shift—away from fossil fuels—should be a huge good-news story for everyone, unless you are betting on nuclear, wind, natural gas and the like. We’ll set out the hows and whys.

I’d like to hear your views. Will electricity from solar really prove to be “too cheap to meter”? And, if so, what will that mean for geopolitics, the electrification of economies and climate change? And if the boldest predictions for this form of energy turn out to be right, which country or countries would you predict will benefit the most? Write to me at economisttoday@economist.com.

Adam Roberts, Digital editor

Recommended reads

Why house prices are surging once again

Is a fresh housing boom under way? In April a house-price index for the world, excluding China, rose by more than 3% year on year (see chart 1). American house prices are 6.5% higher than a year ago, Australian ones are up by 5% and Portuguese ones are soaring. In other countries, the market looks surprisingly strong given years of high interest rates.

Vladimir Putin’s dangerous bromance with Kim Jong Un

Kim Jong Un has a new best friend. Out is Donald Trump, who exchanged saccharine letters but spurned him at a summit in Hanoi in 2019. In is Vladimir Putin, who has courted Mr Kim for weapons to fuel his war in Ukraine. They now have an “unbreakable relationship of comrades-in-arms”, the North Korean dictator gushed in a recent message to his Russian counterpart. Mr Kim has made two trips to Russia’s Far East to meet Mr Putin since 2019; Mr Putin is expected to soon make his first visit to Pyongyang since 2000, the year he became president.

Three charts assess England’s chances of winning the Euros 2024

You have to hand it to English football fans. Their unshakable bullishness about their team’s prospects belies 58 years of heartbreak in major tournaments. England are heading into the Euros, which kick off on June 14th, as the bookmakers’ favourites. Their odds of 7 to 2 imply that they have a 22% chance of winning the tournament. France are second (20%), followed by the hosts, Germany (15%).

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