Asked where the Wall Street money goes in housing, the appraiser and housing analyst says it goes to the upper third of the market, where buyers draw on equity. He argues buyers are holding off mostly because rates keep moving, not because of the rate itself.
fortunately, I'm a long-term six-week record here.
…money. And Tom, this week, we had a story about how 7% mortgage rates have hit the U.S. housing market. It's actually more than 7% now. And those rates have sent pending home sales tumbling to near 12-year lows. So it's having an impact on the numbers. The housing market has really slowed down.
…coming up in a bit, her Fifth Avenue? Where does all that Wall Street money go in the Jonathan Miller world? Well, it goes to the upper half or upper third of the housing market. The lower you go in price, the more dependent consumers are on mortgage rates. Equity drawdowns are fueling tremendous strength in the luxury market. New York Metro. The West Coast, certain markets, really is the story. And I think we're overly obsessed with mortgage rates as sort of the determinant of health of the housing market. I think the biggest issue with mortgage rates is if they stabilize, I think that there's a lot of people, I call it, they're basically procrastinating to make a decision because they can't get their arms around the current rate because five minutes later it's going up or changing. Consumers need time to sort of get comfortable, and there's been sort of too much information flowing out.
What I love about your work is you not only show San Francisco's mental up of AI and
all that, I mean, the starter homes are like,
you know, half a million to a million dollars. Yeah, there's no starter home. That's right. But just north, Seattle's really struggling. Jonathan Miller and Miller Samuel here on Seattle. Seattle is not San Francisco. There's tech unemployment, uncertainty. There's layoffs, fewer job-driven…