REAL ESTATE REALITY ZONE

The RE Reality Zone is a quick summary of key real estate market data available for you to get clarity on the market trends without getting lost in the noise of fake news, YouTube clickbait, or data overwhelm.

30 Second Summary

If you only have 30 seconds read this:

The RE market is fine. Buying activity is stable and normal. Inventory ticked down with vacations. It's seasonal. It’s well within the 80-100k new weekly listings we had pre-pandemic.

Interest rates are stable in the 6.7 range as well. But sales get slower in the summer.

The RE market is still stabilizing from the pandemic and post pandemic rate change. That threw the market completely awry and it takes awhile to figure out what we’re going to end up with.

That makes a “Crash” very unlikely. We also don’t have much distress in housing. We have more inventory because houses are harder to buy due to affordability. It’s not more sellers than normal, it’s less home-buyers.

Wages are increasing for people to afford current housing. I don’t mean through min wage increase, I mean through job growth by creating demand for products and services, and building more affordable housing with less regulation.

See below for the June jobs report, it’s incredibly good!

We need more houses. If the illegal immigrant deportation situation changes, that may affect housing. No one knows by how much.

Make your purchase and sale decisions based on the fact that the sales pace is increasing now.

Key Stats

If you have 2.5 more minutes see below:

(Stats from from Altos, Housingwire, Jason Hartman, and others)

Last week’s SFH Inventory on Market: 860,068

T,his week’s SFH Inventory on Market: 861,238

Pending Sales – 83,666 (1.6% higher than same week last year)

New listings – 91,756 (1.9% higher than same week last year)

This week’s price reductions are Higher than last year at 42.1% = High (normal is 30-35%).

(A leading indicator of buyer demand strength, and home price direction)

June’s on-market SFH Median Home Price: $432,700

July’s on-market SFH Median Home Price: $422,400 (0.24% higher than same month last year)

Last week's Median Price of Homes in Contracts: $450,000

This Week’s Median Price of Homes in Contracts: $449,900

Housing Vacancy Rate: 7.0% – very low (quarterly)

National vacancy rates in the second quarter 2025 were 7.0 percent for rental housing and 1.1 percent for homeowner housing. The rental vacancy rate decreased from 1.41 percent over the first quarter of 2025 and was slightly higher than in the second quarter of 2024 (6.06 percent). Source

United States Single Family Home Prices

Source: tradingeconomics.com

United States Total Housing Inventory

Source: tradingeconomics.com

Charts below updated on August 28, 2025

Policy Watch

– I hope to provide you with the commonly referenced, applicable financial data to see for yourself what effect government economic policy has on jobs, incomes, debt positions, and affordability for Americans, regardless of party.

— *** The jobs report is important. Please know when the gov puts out a report like "jobs", there is a revision done a month or so later, when they crunch the actual numbers. The press rarely reports the revisions, but that is the most accurate. I advise you to put less emphasis on the initial reports and look at the later revised reports for a more accurate view. They indicate part-time, full-time, native born and foreign-born, private sector and public sector job, those are categories that matter.

- April added 177k Jobs

- May added 139k jobs

- June added 147k jobs - 78 of 79 “experts” predicted less than 100k

CLICK THIS JUNE JOBS REPORT ←—-Click

Key takeaways:

- 830k new jobs native born

- 348k jobs lost for foreign born

- 437k GAIN of full-time jobs

- 367 LOSS of part-time jobs

- GAINS in private sector jobs, not just public sector

- Wages UP

The last 3 jobs reports were revised UP, not down. That means the reporting on jobs was even BETTER upon revision, not worse.

This is a 180 degree reversal of biden era job numbers where native born LOST 3 million jobs getting replaced by foreign born, multiple part-time jobs were replacing full-time, and virtually every report was revised significantly down. The numbers told the story.

- Inflation is stable, has not increased with tariffs as many claimed. What did increase was billions in revenue for the U.S. Example - Japan admitted they are absorbing costs in cars.

-The US owes 36 Trillion dollars in national debt, please hold our leaders accountable to reduce that number and be fiscally responsible. Yes, it means tough discussions on what should be cut. This high debt means interest rates have to be higher to sell the treasuries to other countries. Ideally the Fed can lower rates, you can see in the news there is a spat with Fed chair and Trump admin. The rates right now are costing America 100s of Billions in interest.

— The BRICS nations are going to have a hard time coming off the Dollar as the U.S. actions being taken to curb spending kick in to increase stability. They’re going to try, but the consensus is odds are low.

— Please say NO to Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in any form (ie Fedcoin).

– Passive income from RE is a shield for most of this, whereas "flipping" and wholesaling can stop at any time.

**** We love “co-living” for amazing cash flow. Ask us about how we can help you retire with just 5 single-family houses.

Mortgage Applications & Rates

Because the current market relies HEAVILY on the CHANGE in mortgage rates, we’ve added this section.

Key Mortgage Stats:

30-Year Mortgage Rate: 6.56% as of August 28th, 2025 (previously 6.58%)

MBA Mortgage Applications: -0.5 as of August 22nd 2025 (previously -1.4%)

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage backed by Freddie Mac held steady from the previous week at 6.58% as of August 21st, their lowest level since October. “The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage remained flat this week.

Over the summer, rates have come down and purchase applications are outpacing 2024, though a number of homebuyers continue waiting on the sideline for rates to further decrease,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.

Source: Trading Economics

The volume of mortgage applications in the US softened by 0.5% from the previous week in the third week of August, extending the 1.4% trim from the prior month after the combined 14% jump in the two weeks before, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The small decrease was consistent with the 1bps edge-up in the benchmark 30-year mortgage rate, as long-dated Treasury securities held their jumps on pro-inflationary data released in leading indicators. Applications for a contract to refinance an existing mortgage fell by 3.5% offsetting the 2.2% increase in applications for a mortgage to buy a new home.

Source: Trading Economics

United States MBA 30-Yr Mortgage Rate


Source: Trading Economics

Delinquency & Foreclosures

Understand the leading indicator of borrower stress. (It will lag behind a few weeks before the data is reported)

ICE First Look at Mortgage Performance: Delinquencies Ease in July as Foreclosure Activity Edges Higher

  • National delinquency rate: The delinquency rate fell by eight basis points (bps) in July to 3.27%, a 9-basis-point improvement year over year (YoY) and still 58 basis points below its 2019 levels.

  • Serious delinquencies: Loans 90+ days past due but not in foreclosure held steady overall. Also, while serious delinquencies are up 30,000 YoY, it is the smallest annual increase since November, as the impacts from recent wildfires and last year’s hurricanes continue to fade.

  • FHA delinquencies: FHA loans remain the primary driver of stress in the market. While FHA delinquencies ticked down by 5 basis points in July, they are still 15 basis points above year-ago levels and now account for the majority (52%) of serious delinquencies nationwide.

  • Foreclosure activity: Foreclosure inventory rose 10% YoY, with starts increasing annually for eight straight months and foreclosure sales up in each of the past five months. Even so, the national foreclosure rate remains 35% below pre-pandemic norms.

  • Prepayment activity: Prepayments edged up slightly to 0.67% in July on a modest improvement in rates and are up more than 12% from a year ago.

For more information about gaining access to ICE’s loan-level database, please send an email to
[email protected]
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US Historical Foreclosure Activity and Rates

Population Growth

Top Ten Growing States

Top Ten Declining States

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