An Apology Letter..

Dear First-Time Buyer Who Did Everything Right,

If I had to name the most frustrated person in America right now (not frustrated with life, frustrated with real estate specifically) it's you.

You didn't panic-buy in 2021. You saved the down payment. You watched rates. You got pre-approved. You waited. And now you're sitting here in May 2026 hanging on to a job you have mid-feelings about, rates right where economists said they'd be, checking Zillow three times a day and somehow it still doesn't feel like your moment. That's the cruelest kind of frustration. The kind that comes from doing everything you were supposed to do and shit not working out…

If you follow this blog weekly or my monthly podcast Property Pursuits, you’ve probably been waiting for me to address the elephant in the room for the past few weeks. Back in December I published a blog and followed it up with a January webinar where I told you that 2026 might be your last best window to buy a home. I told you that the market was opening slowly and quietly and that the buyers who showed up prepared while everyone else was still waiting would be the ones who won. I told you that cycles don't wait for confidence. They reward clarity.

And then the United States went to war with Iran on February 28th.

Everything has changed in the past 2 months and I bet you’re wondering, “Is she sorry?”

I’m not going to defend myself here, but I will elaborate and let you decide where forgiveness is due. You deserve more than a lender just doubling down on her own call to protect her ego. So let me walk you through exactly what I got right, what I didn't see coming, and most importantly - what it all means for you right now sitting at your kitchen table trying to decide what to do next.

What I didn't know.

I did not know about the war. I'm not going to pretend that a conflict that pushed oil from $71 to over $115 a barrel in a single week didn't change some of the math I laid out in January. It did. Rates that briefly dipped below 6% in February got pulled right back up. The confidence I predicted would slowly return for sellers - specifically move up buyers who have been sitting on equity and trapped in a home that didn’t fit their needs anymore - took a hit I wasn't expecting. And the slowly stabilizing market I described - the one that was supposed to give first-time buyers a beautiful combination of time and leverage - got a jolt of uncertainty.

That's real. I'm fully admitting I didn’t see this coming.

What I got right.

In January I told you this: housing affordability isn't won when interest rates are the lowest. It's won when competition is manageable and buyers have leverage. This week the NAR's own chief economist Lawrence Yun confirmed that. He said there are more than 6 million more jobs in this country than there were in 2019. And yet home sales are down by a million compared to that same period.

Read that again. I personally wasn’t expecting the beginning of his sentence and sure as shit didn’t think it would end with that point. More jobs. More income. More people who could qualify. And a million fewer sales?!

That is so much bigger than interest rates. You know exactly what I’m going to say next and I’m aware you might roll your eyes. That IS a confidence crisis! And it is creating exactly the conditions I told you about in January: a market where prepared buyers have leverage, where sellers are realistic, where listings sit long enough to negotiate, and where you are not competing with the emotional urgency that shows up later in the cycle.

I called it a slowly opening market. The war made it open more slowly. That's actually more of what I described, not less.

…Except of course the houses that are going in multiple offers situations every weekend. There’s no way to explain that except witchery. I’m kidding because I explained it completely what I came up with term Confidence Tax. It’s what the sellers who aren’t pricing and presenting their homes well are paying.

This Week’s Data

The April jobs report dropped this morning and it blasted past expectations (I’m so sick of saying that). The economy added 115,000 jobs in April - more than double the consensus forecast of 55,000. That sounds like a number that would send mortgage rates climbing. A strong jobs report typically means the Fed has less reason to cut, bond yields rise, and mortgage rates follow. 

You know what’s interesting about this morning? Mortgage bonds are taking it in stride.

There is a ceasefire in place between the U.S. and Iran - mediated by Pakistan and currently extended - with active negotiations underway covering everything from the Strait of Hormuz to Iran's nuclear program. The market appears to be pricing in the possibility that a peace deal actually happens. The market thinks if it does - oil prices will come down, inflation pressure eases, and the rate picture changes FAST. That is the whisper trade happening in the bond market right now while everyone else is trying to figure out the jobs number. 

It’s worth noting, wages came in softer than expected - average hourly earnings rose just 0.2% for the month and 3.6% annually, below the 0.3% and 3.8% estimates. Softer wage growth means less inflationary pressure from the labor market side. Combined with a market that is quietly hopeful about Iran, today's strong jobs number is being absorbed without a rate spike.

Hope is the strategy though. This ceasefire has already been violated by both sides. The talks are fragile. But for one Friday morning in May, the bond market is choosing cautious optimism over panic.

This is getting long but there’s more data from this week that I need to cover. New home sales actually rose 7.4% in March, beating expectations. Before you pop the champagne, the median new home price fell 6.2% year over year to $387,400. Builders aren't selling because demand is surging. They're selling because they cut prices to move inventory. That is a very different story and it tells you something important: even the powerful sellers in this market are negotiating with reality. 

Existing home sales fell to their lowest level in nine months. Macro data that may not translate to your micromarket but still worth noting. We get CPI numbers on Tuesday and if inflation comes in hot, rates could nudge higher. If it cools, we could see some stabilization. 

Sure this doesn’t feel like a green light, but I will argue with anyone that we aren’t looking at red light either.

That window I told you about…

In December I wrote something that I want to come back to because I think it's the most important thing I've said in a long time. I told you that this window wouldn't be obvious, it’s a quiet opportunity.

Here is what “quietly” looks like right now. It looks like new home prices are down 6.2% and nobody talking about it. It looks like Zillow cutting their price growth forecast over 3% and nobody talking about it. It looks like Powell saying he’s staying on the Fed Board of Governors and…nobody talking about it.

The window is still ajar.

It is not wide open. It is not perfectly lit. But it is open. And the buyers who understand that right now have a rare edge. It isn’t necessarily less competition, because the house they want might be one that was priced and presented correctly. It’s the ability to make a decision based on their own timeline instead of someone else's panic. I’ve seen a lot of market cycles over the past 13 years and the ones I think are hands down the worst?  Where you don’t have time to think.

The one thing that would actually close this window?

It is not another rate hike. It is not another bad inflation print. It is not even another geopolitical shock, as hard as that is to believe.

The thing that will close this window is confidence returning to the market.

When the headlines shift. When the war noise settles. When buyers who have been frozen for six months finally start moving again. That is when the window closes -right about when Suze Orman airs a segment telling you it's a good time to buy real estate.

It will close quickly and you may not even hear the slam. I told you this in January. I'm telling you again in May. Cycles don't wait for confidence. They reward clarity. There is, and I’ll say this without a shred of doubt, pent up demand waiting on the sidelines of the housing market for clarity.

So what do you actually do with all of this?

You find the listing that has been sitting. The one with the quiet price reduction. The seller who listed for a reality that ended February 28th and has since accepted where we actually are. That seller is motivated. That seller may negotiate on price, and definitely will on terms. That seller exists in your market right now. 

You do not wait for the all-clear signal. When that comes, the game is over.