The 3% Mortgage Mirage
Weekly Blog #17 Nostalgia is memory after a few drinks. Few topics inspire more nostalgia—and delusion—than mortgage rates. Every week, brokers, buyers, and investors ask the same question: “When are we going back to 3%?” The honest answer? We’re not. And that’s a good thing. The 3% mortgage rate wasn’t born of the COVID pandemic—it […]
The Future is Now
Weekly Blog #15 “By 2045, we will reach the singularity—the point at which artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence.” Ray Kurzweil In 2005, futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil predicted that humanity would reach the “singularity”—the moment when artificial intelligence overtakes human intellect—by 2045. Two decades later, that forecast no longer sounds like science fiction. It’s increasingly […]
10,000 Hours
Weekly Blog #15 “10,000 hours is the magic number of greatness.” Malcolm Gladwell In his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell popularized what became known as the “10,000-hour rule.” The premise is simple: to truly become world-class—whether in music, sports, programming, chess, or any other pursuit—one must invest roughly 10,000 hours of […]
Highest and Best Use
Weekly Blog #14 “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” Warren Buffett June’s commentary, What’s It Worth?, looked at the many ways real estate can be valued—from comps and replacement cost to cap rates and discounted cash flows. But one critical concept I didn’t cover is the principle of highest and best […]
Crisis Management
Weekly Blog #14 “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride Word out of Washington is that the Trump Administration is considering whether to declare a national housing emergency. On the surface, the reasoning is understandable. Home prices have surged to record […]
What Are the Odds?
Weekly Blog #13 “We should be at least two to three points lower—if things later change to the negative, increase the rate.” President Donald Trump It’s no secret that President Trump has been extremely unhappy with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his reluctance to lower interest rates. Trump, a businessman, understands how rates affect […]
You’re Fired!
Blog #12 “The Federal Reserve is like universal basic income for PhD’s”—Scott Bessant The Federal Reserve is the most powerful institution in the global economy—and one of the least understood. Created by Congress in 1913, the Fed was originally tasked with maintaining financial stability. That mission later expanded to a dual mandate: promoting maximum employment […]
Too Big to Succeed
Weekly Blog #11 They (Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae) are one half fish, one half fowl—Ben Bernanke There are few institutions more misunderstood—or more influential—in the housing industry than Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Most people know the names, but haven’t a clue as to what they do. They aren’t lenders. They don’t make home […]
The Affordable Housing Myth
Weekly Blog #10 “There is no such thing as a free house.” Milton Friedman paraphrase “There’s no such thing as a free house; someone always pays the mortgage.” Milton Friedman’s warning may pre-date our current housing debates, but the lesson is timeless. Lately the rallying cry has been, “eliminate greedy developers and let government build […]
Is Isaac Fair?
Weekly Blog #9 “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” William Shakespeare Let’s start with a question: What does your credit score really say about you? If you’re like most people, you might assume that it measures financial responsibility, discipline, or even moral worth. After all, banks, insurance companies, landlords, […]
