Housing warning: You might not like what you hear #foxbusiness #makingmoney

Not a day goes by, right? I mean, warnings and concerns about the housing market, they're mounting. Now, this morning in my inbox, Politico called this situation a lose-lose. And, well, there have been even more sensational headlines like this one from the Daily Mail saying that realtors have hit the panic button. Now, some parts of the market, the housing markets, have already crashed, folks. I mean, second quarter of 2025, what they call the vacant property zombie report, 1.4 million residential properties, that's up big time, 1.3% of all U.S. homes. So they're vacant, right? They're zombies. 13 consecutive quarters, well, this number has been around that level. So, you know, obviously, people drive through these neighborhoods, you see them, you know what we're talking about. And then, of course, this morning, we learned that mortgage applications were down yet again, third week in a row, and this is refines and purchases. Now, part of the problem is that there are now a lot more sellers. Look at this chart. This is fascinating. A lot more sellers than buyers, all right? 1.9 sellers, 1.45 potential buyers. Now, my next guest has the best insight that I've seen on the street when it comes to these numbers and really the nuance of these numbers. I want to bring in now Resi Club co-founder, editor-in-chief Lance Lambert. Lance, welcome to New York. Welcome back to New York. Thank you for having me. Let's talk about this overall problem. For me, this is the stat that stands out most, right? Let's bring that back before we go to Lance's chart because the more sellers than buyers, obviously, the tables have tilted. It's a so-called buyer's market and yet it doesn't feel like it. Yeah. So, what's occurred is that during the pandemic housing boom, there was so much demand that came in at once. Those ultra-low rates, all the money that was printed, all the remote work, there wasn't enough supply in terms of units out there to meet that demand. So, the demand all didn't get to transact and prices overheated. They soared. And so, once mortgage rates went up 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, that reality of that deterioration became apparent. And so, the market we're in now is slowly active inventory is rising, completed unsold new construction is rising, and the power dynamic is moving more and more from sellers to buyers. Let's look at this. I want you to look at this chart with me in the audience. So, the year-over-year metro level changes. It's interesting because the red areas are all areas that were super-duper hot for a while, right? We're seeing Florida, Texas, Phoenix. These were the areas that were sizzling just not long ago and now they're starting to come down. Is that typical? Yeah, it is typical with housing. Often, the growth markets are the ones that get the corrections or the deeper corrections. And so, what occurred during the pandemic is those markets saw prices go up more, they had a lot of people move in, and also they have just more new construction. And so, as that migration is less of it's coming in, so they have to rely more on local incomes, that's created a demand shock, a greater one there. And the builders for multifamily and single-family, they have to move that product. They're going to sell it. So, if they have to discount it, do big buy-downs, do whatever they need to move that product, they'll do it. And so, it creates a cooling effect on the resale market as existing home sellers have to compete with the builders. So, here's the thing. I read somewhere where there's yesterday, I think, $700 billion in homes worth for sale. Although I kind of like say, come on, give me a break. Maybe it's what they would like to get for them. $700 billion, and that's up over 20% from a year ago. At this pace though, what happens? I mean, are we looking at a housing collapse? So, what we're seeing is more sellers markets becoming balanced markets, more balanced markets becoming buyers markets. And some of the places like Florida, that was in a bit of a gully, is now in a bit of a correction. And so, we are seeing the markets- But you sound confident that it won't get worse. It sounds like- There's downside risk in this market. Prices can fall. And this is one of those windows where there's a greater vulnerability to prices falling. It just takes demand coming down enough to where that can manifest. So, big business. There was a big human cry. I think I was among them. I was among them about Wall Street buying up all the houses and doing a housing boom. A lot of times, people were in bidding wars with Wall Street corporations or these large entities like Innovation Homes or Progressive Residential, and it felt unfair. Someone bid $250,000 on their dream home and someone on Wall Street bid $300,000. Now, some are saying maybe they can come to the rescue and sop up some of this excess that we have. What's the role of these large institutions and these large big businesses that buy homes? So, we saw an influx of institutional capital into single family acquisitions during the pandemic housing boom. A lot of easy money rolling around. Prices are soaring. Rents are soaring. They chased it. And so, they became 2% of the market at that time. That's pulled way back to where it's now a third of 1%. They're not buying much, and they haven't been buying much since the second half of 2022. They don't like the returns they can find in the market. Some of them are a little worried about some of the downside risk. A lot of people are saying they bought all the mobile homes. They jacked up rents. They bought all the cheap, low-hanging fruit homes, starter homes that a I think they're downstream of what the overall reason was. There was so much money that came into the economy, ultra-low rates. Capital markets are humming, and it had to go find returns. And so, I think maybe at a margin, maybe they played a role, but they're a part of a bigger movement of what happened during the pandemic housing boom. So, real quick, I've got less than 30 seconds. The Federal Reserve being criticized. Rates are far too high. Should the Federal Reserve take into consideration what's happening in housing when they make their next rate decision? Well, I think the thing with the long-term rates, like mortgage rates, it's hard to say if the Fed cuts some how much that would impact the long-term rates. But if you look out at the economy right now for housing, when you account for U.S. incomes, U.S. home prices, and mortgage rates, we're at a 40-year low for affordability. And so, the existing home sales market's not getting much turnover, and buyers are gaining more power the longer we've stayed in this constrained market. All right. Save your money. Your dream home may come around again. Your work is fantastic, Lance. Thanks a lot. Great seeing you.