The RE Reality Zone is a weekly 3-minute read that cuts through real estate noise and gives you the data that matters to make money - no hype, just the critical information to make good real estate investment decisions.

30-Second Summary

The RE market is fine. Buying activity is stable and normal for this time of year, as is listing activity. Inventory of houses for sale is down, and will slowly decline the rest of the year.

Interest rates are stable in the 6.5 range as well.

The RE market has essentially stabilized from the pandemic and post pandemic rate change.

I really like this page for inventory perspective - https://www.resiclubanalytics.com/p/state-inventory-update-housing-market-august-2025 

But remember inventory does not necessarily translate into “good” or “bad” market.

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. “No tax on tips” put hundreds of dollars per month back in the pockets of a lot of people that will help offset their bill/housing, and declared income for mortgages!

See below for the jobs info, lot going on. Not about the “total” right now, it’s about the mix of part time or full time, and citizen or not.

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

Make your purchase and sale decisions based on the fact that sales pace usually declines from here.

Key Stats

(from our friends at Housingwire, Jason Hartman, and others)

Last week’s SFH Inventory on Market: 859,096
This week’s SFH Inventory on Market: 860,068

Pending Sales – 82,755 (0.7% lower than same week last year)
New listings – 90,617 (0.5% higher than same week last year)

This week’s price reductions are Higher than last year at 42.0% (normal is 30-35%).
(A leading indicator of buyer demand strength, and home price direction)

May’s on-market SFH Median Home Price: $423,700
June’s on-market SFH Median Home Price: $435,300 (1.97% 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: $450,000

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

Policy Watch

Big picture items that may affect Real Estate:

• Fed signals potential rate drop in next meeting.

   

• 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

• ** SEE THE REVISIONS DOWNWARD and perspective https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/jobs-shocker-july-payrolls-far-below-estimates-follow-massive-revisions-lower

• The problem this brings up is why/how is Labor department all over the place for the last few years, by 100s of thousands. Hourly wages are up 4%, but how is that true if people aren’t being hired? Wages go up to attract workers when there is a limited number of them. Wages go down when plenty of people are avail for hire. This means there is something going on in the reporting.

• CLICK THIS JULYJOBS REPORT ←—-Click

  • Here's the bottom line: Policy change has seen foreign-born jobs decline 5 out of 6 months, while native-born have increased 5 out of 6 months. This is a reset to parity given native born lost 3M + jobs in the years since 2020.

  • This is a discussion of parity in the workforce of native vs foreign. Please don’t presume this is referring to foreign born people or native born people being bad or good humans. It’s simply about the economics of opportunity for the two groups and whether the ratio is appropriate to benefit the country.

  • Curious about the BLS head getting fired? This is a good article describing several egregious reasons why it was time to do so. At the end of the day this is 2025, and it shouldn’t be this hard to report employment in our country in a transparent way. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics 

     

• Inflation is stable, has not increased with tariffs as many claimed. What did increase was billions in revenue for the U.S. - CBO just said debt reduction is likely 4T over 10 years. Policies are trying to speed that up, we need 10T reduction over 10 years without going into austerity. We can do it by selling energy, and charging to sell in our markets.

• 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 (i.e., 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. See how we can help you retire with just 5 single-family houses.

Mortgage Applications & Rates

Why it matters: The current market relies HEAVILY on the CHANGE in mortgage rates.

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.…..source: Trading Economics

The volume of mortgage applications in the US softened by 1.4% from the previous week in the second week of August, slightly trimming the combined 14% jump in demand from the prior two periods, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.…….source: Trading Economics

Delinquency & Foreclosures

(Monthly as of June 2025)

Why it matters: Delinquency is 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 Trend Slightly Higher in June as Foreclosure Activity Continues to Rise off Pandemic-Era Lows

• The national delinquency rate rose by 15 basis points (bps) from May to 3.35% driven by early-stage delinquencies.

• FHA delinquencies, which tend to experience more seasonality, rose by 41 bps in the month, hitting their highest June level since 2013, excluding the 2020-2021 pandemic-era impact.

• Serious delinquencies (SDQs) – loans 90+ days past due but not in foreclosure – held steady but are up +8% (35K) YoY, with FHA loans now accounting for +51% of all SDQs nationwide.

• Foreclosure activity continues to rise off pandemic-era lows with the share of loans in active foreclosure up +10% from the same time last year. Foreclosure starts and sales both rose YoY in each of the past four months.

• Prepayment activity, measured in single month mortality, slipped by 6 bps to 0.65% on higher rates, although it remains up +22% from the same time last year.

https://mortgagetech.ice.com/resources/data-reports/first-look-at-june-2025-mortgage-data

Find additional supporting data on our website

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Corey & Team
Fidelis Wealth Builders

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