BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - The War Has Changed the Housing Market | April 2026 Update

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

The Iran War is already changing the housing market. Home sales have slowed, mortgage rates jumped back up, a reversal in crucial housing affordability is well underway—and we’re not done yet. Oil prices are causing interest rates to fly upward, and guess what? Gas prices might not go down for another year. Is this the nail in the coffin for the return to a healthy housing market? We’re getting into it all in April 2025’s housing market update.  The implications of the Iran War are massive, and we’re feeling it right now. Homebuyers got a glimpse of hope when rates fell below 6% a couple of months ago. Now, we’re back up to the mid-6s. But with less competition in the market, buyers have greater opportunities. Real estate investors, especially those with cash on hand, may have even more time to take advantage. Dave shares the five things investors must do to get a good deal in this market. But will the housing market crash? Your favorite influencer on TikTok is telling you yes, but what does Dave say? If you want proof that a housing crash will/won’t happen, Dave is showing you exactly what’s happening in the market today and whether it could lead to a home price crash, real estate selloff, or something different altogether.  In This Episode We Cover The massive consequences of the Iran War on the U.S. housing market  Why mortgage rates cannot fall back down with the state of today’s economy  Even more buyer power? Why you should be aggressively negotiating in today’s market Five things investors must do to protect themselves against buying bad deals Think real estate is an inflation hedge? Think again. Will the real estate market crash? Signs that the crash bros are wrong (again)  And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1266. Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How is the war in Iran affecting the housing market? I've been saying for years that a Black Swan event can always dramatically shift real estate dynamics. Well, here it is. In the last month, the war has reshaped the trajectory of mortgage rates, inflation, consumer sentiment, and more. And of course, all of these factors will impact home values. And spoiler alert, the impact is probably not good. But that doesn't mean you can't invest right now. In fact, some of the best times to build your portfolio,

are when all of the headlines about housing are negative. You just need to adjust your buybox for a changing market. You're probably going to see better properties become available. Sellers will even be more willing to negotiate. And other buyers are probably going to be scared off. And in today's April 26th housing market update, I'll explain how you should be shifting your strategy to take advantage of these shifting market conditions.

Hey, what's going on, everyone? it's Dave Meyer, chief investment officer at Bigger Pockets, housing market analyst, real estate investor of 16 years now. Today in the show, we're going to talk a little bit more about current events than we normally do, and we're going to specifically be focusing on how the war in Iran is impacting the housing market. So let me just get to the point. The war in Iran is likely going to have negative implications for the housing market. Now, I'm not saying a crash, and we'll talk about that in a minute.

But if you look at what has happened in just the last month, I think we are going to see slower home sales. We're going to see mortgage rates up. We've already seen them go up, half a point. And I think they're going to stay elevated. And I think we're probably likely going to see reverses in affordability and reverses in demand. Now, that does not mean that there's a disaster. And actually, as we're going to talk about towards the end of this episode that could spell really good buying opportunities for real estate investors, But I think we need to actually just break down how this works because that's going to help you understand where the opportunities lie and where the risks lie in this housing market because there are going to be both.

In short, the war is going to push up inflation. And actually, as of today, April 10th, when we're recording this, we just saw the first inflation print since the war started. And it wasn't a good one. It was ugly. We saw the CPI, the Consumer Price Index, go up from 2.4%. to 3.3% in just a single month. I do believe that inflation is going to stay higher than it was before the war for the foreseeable future.

I'll explain that in a minute. But let's just talk about why inflation hurts and why I think it's so important to the housing market. First and foremost, it impacts consumer spending, right? If people are getting stretched by paying more at the gas pump, they have less money to spend other places. The second thing is input cost for housing and other goods, right? we've already seen in the last year, the price of construction on the average price home has gone up

between $10,000 and $17,000 per home, depending on who you ask. That's probably going to go up more in the near future because oil prices are up. That means it's not just gas, right? When oil prices go up, you also see everything that goes on a ship go up, right? They use diesel. That's oil. So if you are importing appliances from China, you are importing. timber, copper, aluminum, whatever it is, those prices are likely to go up with oil prices as well.

That's going to make input costs for housing go up as well. Construction becomes more expensive. But the really big one, the big thing that inflation impacts more than anything when it comes to the housing market is mortgage rates. And this is why over just the last month we have seen mortgage rates after dipping so briefly, we got it. We touched it. We touched 5.99 for the average mortgage rate at some point in February. Now they're back up to about 6.3, 6.5. They're hovering in that range the last couple of days because even before this inflation

print came out on April 10th, everyone knew inflation was going up. You could see it in the oil prices, right? Oil is such a big part of the economy that seeing that gas prices went up more than 50% since before the war started, of course inflation was going to go up. So that's why mortgage rates have. gone up. Now, before we go on, I just want to be clear that when I say inflation is high and getting higher and I think it's going to stay bad for a while, I'm not talking 9%. Like we're not talking about COVID 22 levels where they were printing money and there was supply shock and there was all that

going on. Right now I'm saying we were getting close to the Fed's target of 2%. We're moving in the wrong direction. Could inflation stay in the 3 to 5% range for the next year? I think so. I think that is unfortunately something that we are going to have to contend with. So yeah, inflation is not looking great. And I just want to call out, we've only had one print for the consumer price index, which is the one that makes most of the media. And that was not good. But if you look at other measures of inflation, they're also not good and maybe even arguably worse. If you look at the PCE, which is actually what the Fed looks at, we've actually seen three consecutive months of much higher inflation. That was even before the war. We were saying 0.4% monthly growth three months in a row

right now. If you annualize that, that means that measure could get up to 4.8% even just staying the way it is right now. This is why I'm saying could inflation go back to 3 to 5%? Yeah. I mean, there's evidence of that. And this just sucks, right? It sucks for everyone in America, for you, for me, for everyone. But specifically, when we talk about the housing market, it's to keep mortgage rates higher. That is the unfortunate news for anyone who's working in the housing industry. Because we talk about this a lot, but let's just review how mortgage rates actually work. It is not the Fed.

It is not the federal funds rate. That is one factor in mortgage rates. But the real thing, the closest correlation to mortgage rates are yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries are bonds. It's basically how the U.S. government funds all of the day. debt that we have, $39 trillion in debt that is funded by issuing bonds, treasuries, right? And the yield is basically the interest rate that the government pays investors, people who lend money to the U.S. government.

And this number, bond yields, they fluctuate a lot based on all sorts of complicated economic activity. But inflation is one of, if not the biggest variable in bond yields. I'm not going to get into all the details today, but what you need to know is. is that mortgage rates and bond yields super highly correlated. And when inflation goes up, bond yields go up. This is just one of the ways that the economy works. And as long as we have higher inflation, we're going to have upward pressure on mortgage rates.

This is why they've gone from six to six point three, six point five over the last couple of weeks. And it's why I personally think that we're not getting back towards six, at least in the next couple of weeks and maybe for months or more. And I should mention, I am not the only one. who sees this, we actually do this survey at Bigger Pockets. It's called the Bigger Pockets Investor Pulse, where we just basically take the temperature of residential retail real estate investors, people like you and me and what people are thinking. And the amount of people who are expecting lower mortgage rates has basically just plummeted. In Q1, so in the first couple of months, when we did this survey, I think it was back in January, about 30% of people were saying that

lower mortgage rates were going to be a big opportunity this year. That's dropped to about 12%. When we did the pulse last time, the median, what most bigger pockets community members were expecting were mortgage rates to be somewhere between 5.5 and 5.99%. Now that has gone up to 6 to 6.5% with a huge surge in people actually expecting them to go up even higher. About 27% think that this is going to go higher up to 6.5% percent. maybe even up to 7%. So people not particularly excited about where mortgage rates are going.

So that's my read of the situation. Inflation is up. Probably going to stay elevated. Again, not 20, 22 levels, but elevated from where we have been the last couple of years. I think mortgage rates are going to stay high. And this is going to impact the housing market. How it's going to impact the housing market is something we've got to get into. But first, we're going to take a quick break.

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landlord insurance designed for the modern investor. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm Dave Meyer. Talking about the realities of how the war in Iran is likely to impact the housing market.

We've already talked about the stuff that we know. Inflation has gone up. I personally think it's likely to stay elevated for the foreseeable future. Again, not 20, 22 levels, but higher than where we were.

And I think mortgage rates are going to stay in the mid-sixes. They could even go up from here depending on what happens next. But even knowing what we know now about inflation, about mortgage rates, about recent trends in the housing market in general, we can start to project what is likely to happen in the housing market. And the main thing I think that we are going to see is a slower housing market.

Now, if you're thinking, man, the housing market is already really slow. Yeah, it is. We had one of the slowest prints ever on record. in January, 3.9 million annualized existing home sales, that is super low. It could go slower. Now, there's this whole thing about seasonally adjusting it, but I just, I think we are going to see a really reluctant market when there are times of uncertainty. And although I feel like I've said this every year for the last six years, that uncertainty is high, man, uncertainty is really high right now. We don't know what's going to happen with the war. We don't know what's going to

happen with AI. We don't know what's happening with all of these other things in the economy. And I think that is going to slow down buyer behavior in the housing market. You see this data across the board. Like people just don't make these kinds of decisions. But specifically, residential real estate investors are not feeling very good about it. In our survey that we did in April, bigger pockets members, we asked what impact do you expect the Iran war to have on the real estate market in the next three months? And basically, No one. Less than 5% of people combined said positive or very positive. About 30% were neutral. Over 50% said it's going to have a negative impact. And 15% said a very negative impact.

So just saying investors tend to be on the more optimistic side of housing market participants. And they're all pretty negative. So you got to imagine how home buyers are feeling in this market as well. And this isn't just psychological. The psychological part is. is important, but affordability is going to get lower, right? We started to see nine months in a row up until February. We saw improved affordability because mortgage rates were starting to come down. Prices were flattening out. But we're probably going to reverse those gains, right?

Because mortgage payments are now going up. And if you combine uncertainty with less affordability, how do you get more demand? Like where the homebuyer is going to come from in that market, where people are uncertain, they're worried and things are more expensive. It's just, I just can't see it. I think we're not going to see a lot of demand. Now, again, I am not saying there is going to be a crash. And in fact, back in October, when I made my predictions, I already thought prices were

going down this year. Just as a reminder, I said, I think we'll get national home prices somewhere between negative 4% and plus 2%. And I still think that range is probably close to right, maybe 20%. maybe towards the lower end of that. Like if you ask me today, I don't think we're seeing positive home price growth. I'd say maybe negative 2, maybe negative 3%,

something like that. And that's not that different from what I was projecting six months ago, even though the war is happening. And I know that this sounds scary, right? No one in this industry likes to see home prices go down, but I do want to call out. It has pros and cons.

There are tradeoffs to this kinds of market. and as a savvy investor, there are things that actually benefit you about this kind of market. The cons we know, right? Appreciation is going to be slow, right? If you have an existing portfolio, some of your properties could and likely will go down in potential value. But let's just call out that that's potential value, right? We're talking about a paper loss.

If you don't sell it, you don't actually lose anything. And most people, if you've owned your portfolio for a while, the values of those properties have gone crazy. So it's not like you're actually losing money. You might have just made a little bit less money, if you know what I mean. Right. So those are the obvious downsides of this. But the pros are there too, because this does mean that there will be better deals, right? Because even if supply comes down a little bit, there are going to be more motivated sellers in this kind of market. I feel very confident about that. There is going to be less competition in this market, right? And so even if inventory is not skyrocketing. The number of properties that are going to sit on the market for a long time,

they're going to go up. I feel very strongly that days on market are going to go up. You're going to have less competition. And that means that if you are a savvy investor and you adapt to these market conditions, you're going to find better deals than have been available in several years. Like that is really good news if you were trying to build a portfolio. So don't mistake what I'm saying about the housing market to mean that you shouldn't be buying, You can buy in any market. But it does mean you need to be careful. You need to follow the advice I've honestly been giving for at least two years now on the show about investing in a correction.

And just as a reminder, what you've got to do to buy in this kind of market is number one, buy under market comps. If prices are going to go down two, three, five percent this year, maybe not. But if you're worried about that, you have to buy something seven, eight, ten percent under market comps. And you actually can do that because you have negotiating leverage, because there's going to be motivated sellers, because things are going to be sitting on the market longer. Now, it doesn't mean everyone's going to accept your deals, but if you're patient about this and diligent about it, you will be able to do that. So that's rule number one.

Rule number two, don't buy anything that doesn't cash flow. Just don't. In this kind of market, you need to be defensive. Cash flow is a defensive mechanism. You absolutely should be doing that. Number three, get fixed rate debt. I know it's higher. Mortgage rates are higher.

They could go up more. We don't know. We just saw that. Literally everyone, other than me and some other people, but most people have been saying mortgage rates are going to go down. Mortgage rates are going to go down. But trying to tell you that that might not happen. And look what happened, right?

Mortgage rates have gone back up. Thankfully, they're not at 8% again. But it just proves that no one really knows what's going to happen with mortgage rate. Fixed rate debt on a property that cashed rate. that you buy under market comps, that works in any market. Other two things to think about protecting against downside, right? You don't want to buy anything super risky in this market, buy a great asset in a great location.

That is really important right now. Don't buy in the edge of town. Don't buy something that isn't going to have high rental demand, even if it has some upside. Protect against your downside first. Then you focus on upsides. Once you found a deal that you feel is rock solid and is not going to be risky in this kind of market,

Then you look for the upsides that we always talk about in the upside era. This is stuff like zoning upside, rent growth potential, being in the path of progress, doing value at those things all work. So even though I really believe that some of the dynamics of the housing market are going to change by what's going on with the war in Iran and rising inflation, the formula for what you should be doing right now hasn't changed. That is still the formula for what works. And if you're nervous about the housing market,

all you got to do to keep buying is adjust your own expectations, how much under market comps you're willing to buy. If you're worried about what's going on, maybe you only buy something 10% under market comps or 15% under market comps. It means you're going to have to do a lot more outreach, probably going to have to make more offers.

But if that's what makes you comfortable, fine, do it. You'll be able to get good deals. You'll get cash flow and you'll enjoy the many other benefits like amortization and tax benefits, all that that you get from real estate, but you can protect yourself against the one risk that is really out there, which is prices going down modestly in the next year. Now, I know people are probably thinking to themselves and asking the question,

doesn't inflation push up housing prices? Right? You've probably heard this. Isn't real estate a great inflation hedge? There is actually truth to that. If you measure this like a nerd like I do, the correlation between housing prices inflation is really high. But there is actually a lot of nuance to this. It is not as simple as saying when there is inflation, housing prices go up, right? We've seen inflation above the Fed target for the last couple of years. Real home prices are down for the last couple of years. And that is because there's actually two different types of inflation.

There is something called demand pull and there's something called supply push. And what happens with the housing market really depends on the type of inflation that there is. So demand pull is kind of the inflation that most people are used to. It's basically when the market runs too hot, right? People describe this forum as inflation as too much money chasing too few goods. This is an example of what happened during COVID, right? People were flush with cash. They were getting stimulus checks.

We were printing tons of money. and what happens when you print more money is people have money to spend and they want to go and spend it. But if there is not a proportionate increase in the amount of stuff to buy, prices go up, right? I think cars were a really good example of this during COVID, right? Used cars. People had a ton of money. They were going out and buying stuff. But there weren't all of a sudden more used cars to go buy.

So people bid up the prices of that. This is what happened in the housing market during COVID, right? People had a lot of money. mortgage rates are low that increases demand. This is why it's called demand pull. And the demand pulls prices up. Now, there's another kind of inflation called supply push inflation. And this comes when the input cost to build and make stuff goes up.

And unlike demand pull, which is associated with a hot market, supply push is associated with a slower market, right? This is when the cost to make a car. the cost to build a house, the cost to ship things from one country to another goes up. And because the producers and the infrastructure is more expensive, that stuff gets passed along to consumers. But it's not because there's more demand. And so this kind of inflation is often associated with slower economy, maybe even a recession,

and slower real estate prices. And this is what we're at risk of today. I want to be clear that when we look at the risk of the market, the two types of inflation and the inflation we're seeing right now, we are seeing supply push inflation. Between tariffs, between the war of Iran, it is getting more expensive to make stuff. And that is getting passed on to U.S. consumers, which slows down demand. Not just for cars, it slows down demand for everything, including housing, right? If people can't afford housing, it's at a 40-year low, right? If they're already stretched for affordability in the housing

market and then other things in the economy start to get more expensive, they're not going to all of a sudden bid up the price of housing, right? That's why this kind of inflation is not associated with real estate prices going up. Now, one more thing I just want to mention because I'm not trying to scare you all. I just want to be real with you about what I see in the market. You know, my job here is not to rah-rah everything about the housing market. I want to explain to you what is happening, how to navigate risks, how to spot opportunities. there is a risk of what is called stagflation that is going on right now now now people throw out that word a lot i think it's a lot of people who want to generate fear and clicks

and they use this word stagflation because it's scary and stagflation is scary it's not good what it is to the definition is when you have a combination of inflation and a recession at the same time now hopefully you can see why that's bad because it means that people might be losing their jobs, their incomes might be going down, and at the same time, prices are going up. That's a nightmare for an economy. And I'm, you know, there are degrees of stagflation, right? We saw this in the 70s in the United States, and it got really bad. And I'm not saying we're at risk of really bad stagflation, but is there a chance that inflation goes up at the same time unemployment is going up? Yeah, we're seeing that. Like, you know, we had one good print in March,

but unemployment is going up. Actually, last month, personal incomes went down 1%. At the same time, we just saw three different measures of inflation all go up. So this is something that we all need to keep an eye on because stagflation has really bad impacts on the entire economy and could really damage the housing market. So we're not there yet, but it's something that we're going to talk about in these updates every single month going forward because if it gets worse, then we need to start talking about how to prepare and protect yourself against that risk because that can be dangerous.

But for now, what we're likely seeing is increasing inflation, higher mortgage rates, a slower housing market. And for me, the formula for what you should be buying hasn't really changed. Now, we do have to take a quick break, but after the break, I want to talk about a crash. We talk about this every month because everyone in the media is talking about a housing market crash. But I want to address this head on. Will the war in Iran create a crash? We're going to go through the data step by step and actually see what the risks are. And we'll also talk about some opportunities that are emerging in the market. Stay with us. We'll be right back. If my house had a resume, it would probably say great at structure and not much else. I'm the one

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Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard. heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm Dave Meyer. This is our April 26 housing market update. So far on the show, we've talked about the war in Iran, how it's pushing up inflation, taking mortgage rates up with it, and what that could mean for the housing market. And I've said this probably will put downward pressure on housing prices. It will probably put downward pressure on transaction volume.

But will it turn into a crash? I've alluded to this, but I want to just share with you some evidence right now. No, I do not think it will turn into a crash, at least as of now. I'll give it to you straight. The war isn't good for real estate, but there are many structural reasons a crash remains unlikely. I talked about it a little bit before, but the floor of replacement costs, inflation pushing up the cost to replace a home puts a floor on how far home price.

are likely to fall. Number two, people have massive homeowner equity. It's at an all-time high. People are not at risk of being underwater, of short sales, of any sort of foreclosure crisis. I know people love to say that foreclosures are spiking and going through the roof. That is not true. If you compare delinquency rates, if you compare foreclosure rates now to before the pandemic,

they are lower. Yes, they have gone up from. the artificially low era of COVID, but they are lower. So that is an important thing to remember. I say this every month on the show and we do this risk report. But if there was going to be a housing market crash, we would see it in the delinquency data, right? We would see spiking inventory. We would see spiking new listings, right? Supply would be going up. We would say spiking days on market. And at the same time, we would see rising delinquencies. Those are the things we know predict a housing market crash. So let's just look at it, right? Let's look at inventory.

People love to say inventory is going crazy. That's why the housing market's going to crash. How much is inventory up year over year, do you think? From last year to this year, according to Redfin, it is down. It's down 2% year over a year, right? So yes, it is up above where it was during COVID? Yes, but it is not going crazy. This is what happens in a a housing market correction. Demand goes down. Talked about that before, right? Supply follows. That is what normally happens because if there are no buyers, sellers aren't eager to list their home for sale. And when you see both demand and supply go down at the same time, what happens? Prices, they can move a little bit, but they stay relatively flat like they have. But transaction volume

is what goes down. Volume of transactions. How many homes are selling and trading goes down. Again, that's what we have seen and that's what I think we'll probably accelerate. I do think home prices are going to go down a little bit, but the main impact of this is I think we're going to have very low transaction volume. Now, could this change? Could inventory be spiking soon? Sure, but we would probably see that in new listing data. This inventory is how many homes are for sale at any given point. New listings are how many people decide to sell their home that month. That is up year over year, two percent, hardly a cracker. situation, right? Everyone's out there screaming, all these crash bros screaming, oh my God, new

listings are up, inventory's up. Not really. It's basically the same as last year. Inventory down 2%. New listings up 2%. It's basically flat. Basically nothing has happened there. So this is one of the reasons why I don't think we are going to see a crash. On top of that, delinquency rates, still below 4%. They went down from February to March. They're still up where they were over COVID, just like a of these things because they're artificially low. But when you look at the big picture, is the housing market going to crash? It remains unlikely. Now, if we start to see stagflation, we'll have to talk about that. But I still don't even think there's a high chance of the housing market crash if stagflation picks up. But if we see unemployment go to 8%, sure,

there's a risk of a crash, right? But we're at 4.3% right now. And these things move slowly. Like, it's not likely we're going to go from 4.3 to 7% in the next couple of months. If we start to see, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10% unemployment, sure, there is risk of a housing market crash. But we are not there. There is no evidence that that's happening. Unemployment actually fell last month. I think everyone is afraid of AI, myself included. But we just haven't really seen unemployment spike in the way that a lot of people have predicted.

And so as of right now, the risk of a crash remains relatively low. I think the slow, frustrating, annoying market that we've been in for a while is just what's going to be here for the foreseeable future. So that's my prediction. And what that means is the upside playbook that we've talked about. What you got to do in this great stall is still true. Follow the principles that we've been talking about buying. Make sure you cash flow. Buy under market comes.

Generally speaking, be risk off. Don't take a ton of risk if you. don't have to in this kind of market. But find upsides and negotiate because buying opportunities are there. We are entering a buyer's market, you know, in a correction, you go into a buyer's market. That means you have the power. Don't go buy anything. There's a lot of trash out there. There's absolute junk. I get sent it every day. A lot of it is junk. But the good deals are starting to come. I actually think cash flow is going to start getting better because if prices go down a little bit, but rents don't go down, which is normally what happens during a housing correction.

Cash flow prospects are going to get a little better. Not all of a sudden going to be amazing. Don't get me wrong, but it is going to get better. The other thing I want to call out is everything that I have said in the show so far is a national basis. I've been talking about the national housing market. You got to pay very close attention what's going on in your local market. I know not everyone's going to do this, but I employ you, please, if you're going to go out and buy,

do yourself a favor. go on Redfin, go on Zillow, look up what inventory are in your current market, look up what new listings are in your current market and look up what days on market are. Just Google Redfin Data Center. That's all you need to do. It's a free tool. It's super easy to use. Go look this up for yourself. Because if inventory and new listings are up, if days on market are up in your area, means prices are probably going to go down a little bit. But that also means they're going to be more motivated sellers and your ability to negotiate is up. So if you're in that kind of market, that's where you have to be very disciplined. You have to say, hey, this property is on the

market for 400 grand. I can only pay 330 for it. Make that offer. Nine out of 10 people are going to reject that. But one of them might call you three or four months from now and say, you know what, you're right. 330 is the best that I can get. And they might sell it to you. That's what you've got to do in a correcting market. Now, some markets, if you're in the Northeast, if you're the Midwest, go check those inventory numbers. Go check the days on market numbers. If in your market, inventory is still low, new listings are still low, you're not going to be able to do that. Prices might still go up this year, 1%, 2%, 3%. I don't think we're seeing any double-digit increases anywhere in the U.S. this year, maybe 5% in the top performing markets, but they're going to

be slow. But because there are going to be buyers in those markets, I mean, you could still try, but you're going to have to be a little bit more realistic. Maybe you offer $3.80 instead of $400. Maybe you pay asking price. Sometimes you're just going to pay asking price. If the numbers still work, if you underwrite your deals to the same principles that I just still talked about, there's no reason you shouldn't buy. If you follow the advice that Henry and I give you all every single week on this show,

you can still buy. The point is, the market's going to be slow. Use that to your advantage. Be aggressive about negotiating. while at the same time, be aware, be cognizant of the risks that the new emerging reality of the housing market present to us. Mitigate those risks because you can. That's the whole point of the show. Identifying the risks as we have today are the first step in mitigating the risks.

You can still invest if you mitigate the risks and understanding the unfortunate reality. I don't like this stuff, but the unfortunate reality is that with mortgage rates going up, with inflation going up, the market's going to be slow. Appreciation's going to be slow. And so if you acknowledge that, if you understand that, if you mitigate those risks, and at the same time, you take the leverage that the market is giving you in negotiations, that means you can go out and find good deals. Maybe the best deals, maybe some of the best inventory for sale that we've seen in several years.

So that's the lesson today. Understand the risk, but take advantage of the opportunity. That's the message for April 23. 26. And that is our episode for today. Thank you all so much for watching this episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast. We'll see you next time. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K.

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