Why Housing May Not Get as Hammered as Usual in This Rate Hike Cycle

Traditional home buyers are sure to be pinched by rising mortgage rates, but better-financed investors could keep prices rising. Here, a home for sale in Houston last summer. Brandon Bell/Getty Images...

Weekend reads: the slowing housing market and inverted yield curve signal a coming recession

It is human nature to fear missing out as prices skyrocket, But all bubbles burst eventually. Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics predicts a 25% decline in U.S. home sales. What will that do to...

New home sales decline, surprising analysts, even though the inventory of properties for sale has hit the highest level since 2008

The numbers: U.S. new-home sales decreased 2% to an annual rate of 772,000 in February, the government said Wednesday. That figure represents the number of homes that would be sold over a yearlong per...

‘Reduced competition.’ 5 predictions for the housing market in 2022, from economists and real estate pros

We’ve already seen rates rise in the early months of 2022, and some pros say that will continue. Getty Images Aspiring home buyers may have watched as mortgage rates in recent months rose (though to b...

Elon Musk Has Sold Seven Homes for Nearly $130 Million After Vowing to ‘Own No House’ 

It’s been almost two years since Elon Musk announced a plan to sell nearly all of his physical possessions, including his real estate, by tweeting “Will own no house” on May 1, 2020. The billionaire T...

Mortgage rates fall amid geopolitical uncertainty. How the Russia-Ukraine crisis could impact home buyers — and interest rates

Home buyers are seeing temporary relief from rising interest rates as markets react to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But in the longer term, inflation remains a serious concern. The 30-year fixed-rate...

Opinion: Should you add residential real estate to your retirement portfolio?

Is there a way to invest in residential real estate as an asset class? It’s a timely question since, as I pointed out last week, residential real estate can play an important role in reducing the prob...

Forget About Inflation. Contrarians Expect a Recession and a Drop in Bond Yields.

“Something that everyone knows isn’t worth knowing,” as the famed financier Bernard Baruch once observed. And so I was reminded by a long discourse in the New York Times this past week on why bond yie...

Housing Market Is the Fed’s Frankenstein, and It Won’t Be Easily Tamed

Fed chief Jerome Powell says there is an ‘element of uncertainty around the balance sheet’ and the central bank’s plans to shrink it from the pandemic-inflated $9 trillion at which it now stands. Grae...

A Rising Misery Index Points to Four Rate Increases in 2022

Now, in the winter of our discontent, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Misery Index has made a comeback. Those of a certain age will recall it was a measure conceived in the 1960s by the economist ...

Roaring U.S. housing market may cool, keep climbing as Fed ends emergency support

U.S. home prices roared almost 20% higher in the past year, giving families who own properties a major boost to their finances during the pandemic. But Wall Street, a key source of home mortgage finan...

Mortgage Rates Surge. The Pandemic’s Ultralow Rates Are Over.

Text size The average rate of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.45% this week. Brandon Bell/Getty Images Mortgage rates climbed to their highest point since March 2020, according to data released Th...

Bad news for home buyers: Mortgage rates have soared to their highest levels since March 2020

Interest rates are surging on the heels of data showing a concerning outlook for inflation — and home buyers are set to pay the price. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.45% for the week endin...

Is it time to fight the Fed? This veteran strategist says the central bank won’t risk a 20% drop in house prices and a 30% slide in stocks.

The bond bears have been in ascendance this week, even before the release of the latest minutes from the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting. The yield on the 10-year Treasury has jumped 23.7 b...