The Landlord Lens - Is the 2025 Housing Crash Really Here Now?

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Home prices are slipping. Inventory is surging. Mortgage rates remain near 7%. Moody’s just issued a red flare warning for the U.S. housing market and that has serious implications for landlords and investors. #housingcrash #housingcrashupdate #housingmarket2025 In this video, we break down:📊 The latest housing market data for 2025🧨 What’s driving the slowdown in home sales🏠 How price cuts and rising inventory could impact landlords🔑 Strategies to survive (and even thrive) during a downturnWhether you’re a seasoned investor or just trying to stay ahead of the curve, this is the must-watch breakdown of the current real estate landscape.👇 Let us know in the comments: Are you buying, selling, or holding right now?

Housing crash. It's happening. Oh, no. 35% of properties put on the market have actually delisted. Oh, God. But let's talk about this situation. Is this the beginning of the housing crash? Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Landlord Lens.

I am joined as usual by my co-host, Shamus Nally. How are you today, Shamus? John, I'd be great, but here's the thing. Housing crash. It's happening. Oh, no. Moody's, red flare, shoot it all. off. Beob,

you. Oh, God. I'm all anxious now. That's terrible. Well, that's your

natural state, John. But let's talk about the situation that we're actually seeing out there

on the field in the macro environment. And what has people throwing out headlines that is this the beginning of the housing

crash. Like I said, Moody's, uh, flaring things. He's, they're flaring things.

They did a yellow flare last month and just upgraded it, downgraded it to a red flare. Uh, and it's all happening pretty quickly.

Um, so home price growth has slowed in June down to 1.3% nationwide. And actually, that's not even the full story. Nearly one in three major U.S. markets today are seeing a housing decline of 1% or greater, which is not great. The skeptic in me says, okay, so housing prices growth slowed lowest in two years. Well, the last two years, we've seen some pretty significant housing prices appreciation. And then nearly one in three U.S. markets, having 1% or greater decline, that still feels like hard to quantify as to how bad that is,

right? What's a 1.1% decline from that perspective? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there is some worries on inventory being up, some concerns builders have that I think we should all be concerned about if they're going to develop less, right? We want new construction in the country. And that mortgage rate is just stubborn at 7%. And if that's not going to start moving, I have some concerns that this downward slide will continue at this slope probably for a couple more months at least. Yeah, I think that that does make sense. Just looking at the local environment, if you're like me and you're constantly looking at the different real estate apps, right, to see what's available. You're probably seeing, you know, what was first $5,000 decrease in

price. Then you get that notification. It's $10,000. Then it's $15,000. Then, you know, I'm seeing 25, $35,000, decrease. And then what happens? It actually just delists, right? The property goes away. It comes back three months later, maybe six months later, at $50,000, $100,000 cheaper. And the data is showing that as well, right? Thirty-five percent of properties put on the market have actually delisted, which is a sign that people's asking price is not what they're actually getting, right? So they're taking a pause and coming back to the market at a lower price. Exactly. And 35 percent is a significant portion of listings, right? I mean, or 35 percent year-to-day growth of it is significant. That means that buyers are being surprised by the actual change in value of the property they're trying to sell. I think if this were, you know, five, 10 percent year to date, okay, that just looks like the prices are not matching the slope that we've been on for five years. 35 percent means, whoa, demand's actually not there as much. Yeah, it's definitely time if you're planning on selling just to like wake up, look at your local market. the prices that you may have seen, right, or even have been banking on a couple years ago

are not there right now. And I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing. I know your situation in itself, maybe you're feeling that pressure, but we've been talking a lot in this country about housing affordability. And you can't get to housing affordability without having at least some more stable prices in real estate, if not some drop. So I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing, even if you are a investor or a landlord. That's right. So I think one thing, let's shift right now for what playbook landlords should be using. I think there are people out there, influence on our YouTube, right, these kinds of folks that made a lot of hay in 2020 to 2024 really saying, oh, buy with nothing,

you know, you can cash flow really easy. And it's just a totally different playbook that would crash and burn if you deployed that today. So what should we be thinking about? Yeah, a lot of the people that were saying, Dave, Randy's an idiot. The conversation I've had at Thanksgiving with a family, a lot of those people are now looking at a situation where that is not the right move. Even running the numbers myself here in the Colorado real estate market, it's become fairly obvious that to take out financing on a property at today's rates, especially when you're looking at not being a primary residents, the rent doesn't cash flow. Yep.

Right? And so you have to, you have to put down more. Even on the mortgage and interest, even not even kind of the other stuff. Yes, exactly. And so that is a challenging environment. So if we take a step back and we say, okay, prices are going to drop. Maybe rates are going to drop here in the future too. I know a couple people are especially keen on those rates dropping. We might actually be entering an environment where as a real estate investor, you can put your money to work again.

Yep. Right? Where you can get out into the market. take advantage of the fact that it is becoming more and more of a buyer's market as opposed to the seller's market we've seen over the last, I think, four years. Yeah, so save a little more, probably have a little more cash to deploy if prices are going to drop. Anything we should be thinking about with our current properties? What if I was going to sell, you know, I was planning on selling this year? Yeah, if you're planning on selling some strategies, one, just be realistic as to what you can actually ask right in the market or be patient. Be willing to put it out there and wait a little while.

there are some prices you have when you do sell a property that are worth negotiating. And so one of those is definitely your real estate agent. If you're using your real estate agent, see if you can bring that commission down. If you can bring that commission down 1% of one percentage point, right? Yeah, that could make up for the decrease in sales price by 1%. The other thing is you can talk to your real estate agent about a break in the commission or the fees paid if they actually bring the buyer as well, right? which is a great, great situation,

that's for the overall transaction. What's your next thought? Where were you going to barrel on into next, James? In terms of your existing portfolio, what should you do? If you are worried about the squeeze in prices, right? Rent prices, softening your cash flow, it is always a good time, but maybe now is the catalyst you need to really take a good look at your rental business, right?

Okay. Take a look at shopping around rates for things like insurance. Insurance is a big part of the expenses when it comes to cash line. The other thing is take a look at the property and how you're running itself. What are the service providers? Are you using a property manager? If you are, right, you can always do it yourself or at the very least go back to them and do some negotiation, right, to try to bring those fees down.

You also, if you're listing a new property and you're seeing decreased rent prices in your area, make sure you're taking advantage of things like great photos, right? Make it look attractive to your, you know, to prospective renters. Allow pets. If you don't allow pets right now in your property, you might have a really good way to make a little extra money and the pet deposit in a pet fee and make it more attractive to renters, right? To maintain kind of the rent prices that you're getting today.

So there's small changes you can make that really make the property more attractive. Absolutely. And I'll call out one thing that we've said in the past. Keep your renters if you can in a market like this. It's always better to have a stable paying renter in there at the current rent price are a little bit higher than going out to market again and looking for one and potentially confronting a rent market that's a lot softer than when you got the current tenant. Absolutely. And something you like to talk about a lot is dry powder. Dry powder.

If prices are going to come down, squirrel away as much dry powder as you can for if this switch happens where it's going from a seller's market to a buyer's market so you can participate. There are ways to be more free-goal in all of our lives and just help save up a little extra cash every single month so you can put it to work. A lot of amazing property portfolios were established and grown a great deal in the wake of 2008, the financial crisis when prices did drop. So now is not a bad time to get ready to feed. That's right. So if you're a younger investor that's ever talked to a slightly older investor about their buying opportunities they faced and the opportunity they were able to take advantage of in 2009, 2010, and you were,

fuming with jealousy, well, prepare yourself for the future because it might be coming. Yeah. And you can hope for the worst for most people and that the housing market crashes and you can feast. Yeah, if you hate your neighbors. Well, and given lemons, you might as well make lemonade. Cool. Okay. Anything else you'd add? No. All right. Sweet. Well, thanks everybody for coming. Like and subscribe. We'll continue to analyze both takes on the current housing market as we're kind of in this weird limbo state and stasis. Thanks for watching. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading tools and expert advice.

Landlord better from anywhere for free at turbotenant.com.