Price per square foot is down year over year in 36 of the 50 largest housing markets, with Austin down the most at just over 8%. Is that a crash, a correction, or just a market that's finally giving buyers some leverage?
Josh was traveling to Detroit, so Jeb ran this Buy Right, Borrow Smart LIVE solo. He walked through the inventory and mortgage-rate charts, then answered your questions about buying, refinancing, and investing with rates hovering around 7%.
Here's the useful part, cleaned up.
Stop guessing what you can really afford
It starts with a Discovery Call, a straight conversation about your real numbers. Josh and his team show you the price range and loan options that fit, and map out every step to closing. They handle your loan directly, never a referral, so you tour with confidence and write offers sellers take seriously.
That 6.49% lock looks pretty good in hindsight.
When Jeb went live on September 9, Mortgage News Daily's 30-year fixed index was around 6.97%, the highest daily level in more than a year. Rates moved above 7% the next day.
A lot of buyers keep waiting for rates to fall, but the market doesn't work on our schedule. The opportunity right now is often on the other side of the transaction: more sellers willing to negotiate on price, contribute toward closing costs, or provide a credit that can be used to buy down the rate.
That doesn't mean you should run out and buy at 7% because you're afraid rates will go higher. Buy when the house, payment, and timing work for your life. If you can negotiate favorable terms today and rates eventually fall enough to justify refinancing, great. Just don't make the purchase depend on a refinance that hasn't happened yet.
You still have to qualify when that opportunity comes. Your employment, income, credit, equity, property and the lending guidelines at the time all matter.
Yes. There isn't one housing market right now.
Jeb recently listed a home that had an offer within a day and a half and was in escrow within three days. Other properties are sitting for months. Two of the biggest differences are property type and location.
Condos are under more pressure in many markets. They're more complicated to underwrite, while buyers are also paying closer attention to HOA dues, special assessments, insurance and the possibility that those costs keep climbing. If someone is already stretching to make the payment work, uncertainty around another HOA or insurance increase can be enough to push them to the sidelines.
Insurance is also changing the math in higher-risk areas. California's FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort, has an average 29.1% rate increase taking effect October 15, with some higher-risk properties facing substantially larger increases. Insurance that used to be an afterthought can now materially change whether a buyer can afford the home.
The properties still selling quickly tend to have the things buyers are fighting over: good location, good condition and a price that makes sense. A lot of buyers don't have another $50,000 sitting around after closing to remodel a house.
That can create opportunity in the ugly duckling. A livable home that needs cosmetic work and has been sitting may give you room to negotiate the price, move in now, and improve it over time instead of paying a premium for someone else's renovation.
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Real estate can still be a good investment, but that doesn't mean every rental is a good investment at today's numbers.
Jeb's view right now is that he wouldn't be buying a typical rental straight off the MLS unless the numbers genuinely worked. With financing costs this high, a lot of properties simply don't produce enough rent relative to the purchase price, taxes, insurance, maintenance and mortgage payment.
The exceptions are the exceptions for a reason: a distressed property, an off-market opportunity, something you're adding meaningful value to, or a property you can buy at a price where the rental math actually works.
Speaking personally, Jeb sees more attractive opportunities in equities right now than in a typical MLS rental. That's his view of today's math, not an investment recommendation for your situation.
Jeb's view at the time of the show was higher for longer, and the risk was clearly tilted toward rates moving above 7%.
He started the year expecting mortgage rates to spend most of 2026 somewhere around 5.75% to 6.75%. By September 9, Mortgage News Daily was already at 6.97%.
The pressure was coming from inflation and the bond market. The August jobs report showed 162,000 jobs added with unemployment at 4.1%. Oil prices were rising, inflation remained stubborn, and the market was pricing roughly a 60% chance of a Fed hike at the September 16 meeting.
That hike ultimately happened. The Fed raised its target rate by 25 basis points on September 16.
That doesn't mean the Fed directly sets mortgage rates. It doesn't. But inflation expectations, Treasury yields and expectations for Fed policy all feed into the bond market where mortgage rates are priced.
The practical takeaway hasn't changed: if you're under contract and the payment works at today's rate, don't gamble the transaction trying to perfectly time the market. A rate lock is risk management, not a prediction contest.
For your specific rate and lock strategy, Josh and his team can run the actual scenarios on a Roadmap call.
For most borrowers, today's rates haven't created a compelling refinance opportunity yet. But it depends entirely on the loan you already have.
If you bought when rates were 7.5% or 8% and never refinanced, it's worth running the numbers. If you're sitting at 6% or below, today's market probably isn't doing much for you.
Josh uses a quick screening rule to decide when a refinance is worth investigating: divide $125,000 by your current loan balance, and the result gives you a rough rate-drop threshold in percentage points.
$250,000 balance: about 0.50%
$500,000 balance: about 0.25%
$1,000,000 balance: about 0.125%
That's a screening tool, not a break-even calculation. A quarter-point improvement on a large loan may be worth analyzing while the same rate improvement on a small balance may not move the payment enough to justify the cost.
The real analysis comes next. How much does the refinance cost? Are you paying points? How much does the monthly payment actually drop? Are you adding those costs to the loan balance? Are you resetting the loan to another 30 years? And how long do you expect to keep the mortgage?
This is where the advertised rate can fool people. Josh regularly reviews refinance quotes where the borrower sees a great new payment but doesn't initially realize that thousands of dollars in costs and points are being rolled into the new balance. A lower rate isn't automatically a better deal if you have to give up a pile of equity to get it.
The number that matters is your actual break-even. Compare the true cost of the refinance with the monthly savings and how long you expect to keep the loan.
Running those numbers and telling you whether the refinance actually improves your position is exactly the analysis Josh and his team does. You can also set up Rate Watch so they reach out when rates hit a level that makes sense for your specific loan.
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Every week we answer real buyer questions live, on the spot. Bring the one that's keeping you up at night, or send it ahead if you can't make it and we'll cover it on air.
We go live every Wednesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET on YouTube, with the replay on Spotify.