or manage cash flow efficiently. immediate availability of funds could be especially important for households managing their finances paycheck to paycheck or small businesses with cash flow constraints. having the capacity to manage money in real time could help households avoid costly late payment fees or free up working capital for small businesses to finance growth. indeed, during the pandemic, we witnessed how essential rapid access to funds can be, as many households started spending emergency relief payments on the day they were received. 3 to deliver on the promise of a payment system for the future, the federal reserve has made a substantial commitment to the fednow platform, which has benefited from the innovative technologies and approaches proven by global technology companies that are vital for today ’ s always on digital economy. our cloud - first design, unique among central bank instant payment services, positions us for the future by enabling not only the lael brainard, “ supporting fast payments for all ” ( remarks at the fed payments improvement community forum, chicago, october 3, 2018 ), https : / / www. federalreserve. gov / newsevents / speech / brainard20181003a. htm ; esther george, “ from then to fednow : payments innovation and the federal reserve, ” policy perspectives ( kansas city : federal reserve bank of kansas city, december 18, 2020 ), https : / / www. kansascityfed. org / research / documents / 7574 / policy _ perspectives _ 12 _ 1 _ 20 _ v5. pdf. lael brainard, “ the future of retail payments in the united states ” ( remarks at the fednow service webinar, washington, d. c., via webcast, august 6, 2020 ), https : / / www. federalreserve. gov / newsevents / speech / brainard20200806a. htm. - 3throughput and scalability required for high - volume retail transactions but also broad geographic points of resiliency to ensure continuous service. cloud - first design affords other key technology components such as self - healing processes and automation, which add to operational resiliency. and our development processes are agile, allowing us to deliver new features faster to financial institutions of all sizes as they are ready to adopt them based on their priorities. we have also invested heavily in stakeholder engagement to ensure readiness for service adoption through efforts like the pilot program, the fednow explorer resource, the fed

be persistently high. there has been a considerable imbalance in the supply and demand for housing for some time. housing is also sensitive to interest rates and thus quite responsive to monetary policy. so for the next few minutes, i would like to focus on how demand – supply imbalance in both owner - occupied and rental markets came about, how it is affecting prices for housing today and in future, and how housing is likely to affect the fomc's efforts to return inflation to our 2 percent goal. housing demand increased strongly in the years leading up to the pandemic, sustained by relatively low interest rates, the formation of new households, and rising incomes. demand for housing then surged during the pandemic as people spent more time at home, initially on the intensive margin - more housing square footage per household. couples in apartments wanted more space to work from home and opted for bigger apartments or houses. also, remote work enabled people to work from preferable locations so the demand for second homes surged. as the pandemic wore on, demand for housing also increased on the extensive margin - meaning more household formationas roommates sharing apartments now wanted to live on their own as they continued to work from home. and adult children began moving out of their parent's homes. all of these factors led to higher rates of household formation and greater demand for housing. so, by the end of 2021, the pandemic was driving up the demand for housing on both margins. meanwhile, the pandemic's supply constraints caused shortages in construction materials and construction workers, limiting the supply of new housing. the 2 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches combination of soaring demand for housing and limited supply until earlier this year meant the housing market had substantial excess demand, which was reflected in substantial increases in housing costs. but now imbalances in the owner - occupied market have started to shift. due to the fed's actual and anticipated tightening of monetary policy, mortgage rates have increased from less than 3 percent at the end of last year to nearly 7 percent recently. higher borrowing costs have made it more expensive for households to buy homes, whether they are first - time buyers or trading their current home for a different one. and so, we have seen big drops in home sales over the course of this year. the monthly numbers of new and existing home sales are now back below the average levels seen in the few years before the pandemic. and the august decline in pending