The drop in home sales that began earlier this year has led homebuilders to curtail the rate of new construction. Indeed, single-family housing starts are down about 35 percent since their peak earlier this year.
The objective of all these measures has been to help restore the transmission of monetary policy and address emerging heterogeneity by relaxing the balance sheet constraints of lenders (banks) and borrowers (firms and households). In this context, the Eurosystem has supported euro area SMEs both directly and indirectly, by allowing banks to pledge corporate loans as collateral with the Eurosystem.