Housing Hype Cycles Come And Go

Jul 16, 2025

Time to read [4 minutes]

We Are At Peak Private Credit So Are We At Peak Private Listing Hype?
Mortgage Applications Continue To Rise
The iBuyer Hype Cycle Is Over, Now Its AI’s Turn

This week I found myself with a lot of odds and ends and podcasts of topics lying around, so I thought I’d share them all in a piecemeal way to clear the deck.

Notorious POD: Private vs. Public Markets with Jonathan Miller

I had an enjoyable and insightful conversation with Rob Hahn, someone I’ve known for several decades, going back to the days of the Lucky Strikes Social Media Club when blogging was in its infancy. I wrote a post about two weeks ago, ” With So Much Data, Why Are Private Markets Eating The World? ” that caught Rob’s attention, and he wanted to discuss it. Rob speaks with a high level of experience and expertise on how the real estate brokerage industry functions, as I focus on housing market value as a purist, always striving to enable a level playing field during the new frenzy for private listings.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, stated yesterday, as our podcast was being recorded, that he thinks we are at “Peak Private Credit.” [gift link] “In other words, private-credit firms are currently accepting relatively little return in exchange for taking on risk, and the industry has grown significantly in the past several years.” That is the “moment” Rob and I are discussing in his podcast but in the private listings parallel universe.

Mortgage Applications Are Up

More listings have yielded more mortgage applications, suggesting existing home sales are not expected to plunge. Economist Mark Zandi, a very gracious, accomplished, and respected expert, was a guest on my Housing Helix podcast years ago. I’ve enjoyed many of his economic presentations, and now he suggests home sales are going to drop even more. But I still wonder about this old post. Ha.

Multifamily Living Has Gone To The Dogs (And Cats)

A post I wrote last week about having pets in multi-families was picked up by Candy’s Dirt, a great resource on the Dallas and surrounding market. I got a chuckle out of the image they created for the article.

NAR Is Trying To Slow Their Inevitable Membership Collapse

In the NAR post-settlement world of Sitzer-Burnett, the organization recognizes an impending decline in its membership. The first sign of self-awareness came when they removed membership numbers from their website, not too long ago. They just announced their Market Statistics Dashboard, which I assume will be too “macro” to be helpful to most agents. With the release, Inman News makes the point: “NAR’s dashboard debut comes as the Association continues to navigate the aftermath of sexual misconduct allegations, buyer-broker commission lawsuits and several antitrust probes — all of which have led Realtors to question NAR’s value in a rapidly changing industry.” When the dust settles in a few years, with the decline of MLS systems requiring NAR membership for access, I would speculate that membership will plunge from 1,500,000 to 500,000 or less, because most members don’t need the services NAR offers and resent what NAR dictates. After all, they’re just a trade group. Fewer members means significantly less lobbying and fewer statistics pushed out to the public.

[Podcast] What It Means With Jonathan Miller

This week, I recapped the data results of the implementation of NYC’s FARE Act, Pet Restrictions on Multi-Family Living, and noted the end of the iBuyer hype cycle.