Housing Hype Halt

Rates dropped, but so did buyer enthusiasm. What gives?

Splits and Caps Daily: Action for Agents

June 5, 2025

📈 Market Move:

Shoppers Scatter

Sellers are catching a vibe — and it’s not a good one.

Even though mortgage rates dipped ever so slightly (hello 6.85%), buyers are still playing hard to get. Why? Because affordability is in the ICU. Home prices are still sky-high, economic uncertainty is in the air, and even if rates fall, it won’t matter much if you still need a small fortune to lock down a basic house.

Redfin says listings are up technically… but May saw the sharpest late-month listing slowdown in 10 years. Translation: sellers are hesitating, because they’re realizing buyers are ghosting.

And those mortgage numbers? Woof. Only 1.4 million home loans were secured in Q1 — down from 4.2M in early 2021. Instead of buying, homeowners are refinancing or pulling equity like they’re using their house as an ATM.

Meanwhile, new tariffs on steel and aluminum are about to make construction more expensive, which means fewer new builds and even less affordability. So yeah — good luck fixing the housing crisis when a 2x4 starts costing as much as a ribeye.

Oddly enough, luxury homes are still appreciating — $1.8M is now the “typical” luxury tag. Less demand, but prices still rising? That’s rich-people economics for you.

Bottom line: We’re in a weird limbo. Buyers are sidelined. Sellers are stalling. And unless rates and prices fall, the market’s just gonna keep treading water.

🌟Quote of the Day:

"Quality means doing it right when no one is looking." — Henry Ford

📊🤔 Agent Poll

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🎉 Fun Fact of the Day: 

Vanity Viewing: Open Houses Were Invented in the 1910s. Back then, they were called “inspection days” and people dressed in formalwear to attend. Imagine showing up to a 2-bed, 1-bath in a tuxedo. Vibes.

📚 Book Recommendation:

“The Art of Thinking Clearly” by Rolf Dobelli—This book is like a cold shower for your brain — uncomfortable at first, but you’ll come out sharper.

Rolf Dobelli doesn’t try to make you smarter. He shows you how to stop being dumb — which, let’s be real, is half the battle. The book is basically a hit list of all the ways we fool ourselves: sunk cost fallacy, survivorship bias, confirmation bias — the greatest hits of mental misfires.

Each chapter is short, punchy, and painful in that “ugh, I’ve totally done that” kind of way. You’ll read one, nod, feel smug, and then realize you're still making that exact mistake in your business or life. Welcome to self-awareness.

If you're making big bets — on deals, on people, on yourself — this book is a cheat code. It helps you see where you're BS-ing yourself before the market does it for you.

Bottom line: Think better. Win more. And stop falling for your own crap.

Be the person your competition hopes takes the day off.

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